Suicide Thursday by Will Carver

Today I 'm helping to close off the tour for Suicide Thursday, another grea unique, challenging read from Will Carver. Huge thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for the invitation & to the publisher for my review copy.

 

The Blurb

If words could kill…

Eli Hagin can’t finish anything.

He hates his job, but can’t seem to quit. He doesn’t want to be with his girlfriend, but doesn’t know how end things with her, either. Eli wants to write a novel, but he’s never taken a story beyond the first chapter.

Eli also has trouble separating reality from fiction.

When his best friend kills himself, Eli is motivated, for the first time in his life, to finally end something himself, just as Mike did…

Except sessions with his therapist suggest that Eli’s most recent ‘first chapters’ are not as fictitious as he had intended … and a series of text messages that Mike received before his death point to something much, much darker…

 

My Review

This is the sixth of Will's books I've read after Nothing Important Happened Today, Hinton Hollow Death Trip,  The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous & The Daves Next Door (sorry, when I started this list I hadn't realised I'd read so many! 😂) all of which have been published since the back end of 2019. And I think I opened every one of those reviews with something along the lines of 'I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to review this book!' Because Will Carver writes books like nobody else and his books are really, really hard to review! 

Suicide Thursday is no different - I don't know how I'm going to review it! Set over a couple of weeks around Suicide Thursday, it focuses on Eli, his girlfriend Jackie and best friend Mike. Several other characters feature but these three form our main cast. It's not a plot spoiler to say Mike kills himself. On a Thursday. But the story focuses on the behaviour of the three main players before and after (for the survivors) Suicide Thursday. There's also the matter of some really alarming texts sent to Mike prior to death. And afterwards, actually. 

The first thing I should say is that will not be for everyone, as you will have gathered from the title. And the scene is graphic. But Suicide Thursday has got lots to say about friendship, desperation and determination, and the power of words.

Eli is such an interesting character. He hates his job, which is one he could be reasonably successful at if he put his mind to it. He wants to finish with Jackie, most of the time anyway, but can't seem to do it. And he really, really wants to write a novel but can't seem to manage that either. Ideas aren't the problem, they come thick and fast, but rather getting past the first chapter. He's got a library of first chapters, some of which we get to read - would love to read more, but no second chapters. He discusses all these things with his therapist and their sessions are something else. Mike's death hits him hard but he's maybe a little jealous because Mike actually got to finish something. It's a really interesting idea. 

Text exchanges on Mike's phone are interspersed throughout the book and I found them quite distressing, and really wanted to know who was sending them.  They are very dark. Mike seems like a lovely man who has just lost all hope. Men's mental health is not discussed enough and whilst this is fiction, and it's shocking, it's a reminder to us all to check in on our friends. But it's also a reminder to be careful what we say.

The story jumps backwards and forwards around Suicide Thursday but the chapters all indicate where we are. You have to keep your wits about you though! From the peripheral characters I loved the two Teds, I could just picture them, and my heart went out to Mike's dad. 

Sorry, this review is very bitty! Told you it was hard! Suicide Thursday is less aggressive than some of Will's other books with no direct addresses to the reader. He does have a lot to say, however, about religion, in this case Catholicism.  But he tells a tale incorporating love and loss, friendship and heartbreak, mental health, darkness and desperation, release and grief. And the power of words. Is there a happy ending? You'll need to read it to find out. This is a dark, challenging and shocking novel, but not without its lighter moments, and well worth a read.

The Author

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the critically acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series that includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press. Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award 2020 and Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for Guardian Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by three standalone literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous (both optioned for TV) and The Daves Next Door. He lives in Reading with his family.