In Laura Sims's chilling novel How Can I Help You, Margo Finch toils away as a circulation clerk at the Carlyle Public Library but, far from possessing any relevant experience, she's a refugee under a different name from a nursing career, who's left a series of hospital jobs with a string of unexplained patient deaths. As if that weren't worrisome enough, at least one more shocking event in Margo's past adds to her menace.
Her life in a world of books begins to unravel when Patricia Delmarco, a new reference librarian, arrives from Chicago. Patricia has her own set of troubles she's trying to escape, among them a failed novel she's abandoned after seven years, and a moribund relationship with her accountant boyfriend. Patricia is content to put her aspirations for a writing career behind her as she settles into her job, at least until a cantankerous library patron dies under mysterious circumstances with Margo nearby. After Margo carelessly discloses information about her prior life, Patricia's research skills kick in. Patricia unleashes a flow of words about her co-worker's vividly imagined past into the notebook that is her constant companion--all while she sits at her desk responding to an array of bizarre reference questions from library patrons.
From that point forward, in chapters that alternate between the voices of Margo and Patricia, Sims (Looker) fashions an intriguing cat-and-mouse game in which it's hard at times to distinguish between pursuer and pursued. How Can I Help You is smartly scary entertainment that will have readers guessing about its outcome until almost the final page. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer