Sam Becker, the main character of Someone to Save You, is a London pediatric heart surgeon, who met his wife on a relief mission in Africa. He’s good at his job and rising in his profession.

He’s haunted by a tragedy in his past. His sister was raped and murdered, and his then best friend was convicted of the crime. Sam’s passion for saving lives, perhaps, rises from his perceived failure to protect his sibling.

Driving home from a commemoration of what would have been the sister’s thirtieth birthday, his car is flagged down by a young girl in the road. She frantically directs him down a slope to a railroad track, where the girl’s mother has stopped her car, intending to kill herself and her children. Sam gets the remaining children out of the car in time to save them, but the mother dies.

Sam is a hero to the press, but he hates it and feels like a failure. However, something worse than that is happening. There are threatening phone calls, and attempts to sabotage his career, and hints that his sister’s true killer walked free. And then someone is kidnapped.

The whole story is very complex and tightly plotted. Author Paul Pilkington is very good at his craft. He creates interesting characters and cranks up the drama inexorably (most of his books, oddly, seem to have female protagonists. This one is an exception).

Not much objectionable material here, either. There’s one conversation about religion, which is fairly noncommittal, but not anti-God.

I happily recommend Someone to Save You.