Mary Shields is a sharp-tongued, forthright social worker, dealing with some of Glasgow's worst offenders. She has been doing her job way too long and is more than jaded by her enormous workload, the lack of time to deal with it, and the horrendous things she has seen.
The time has come for Mary to think about taking her life in a different direction, but she is torn between just handing in her notice, like a normal person, and seeing how far she can go with a string of reckless behaviours that should lead to her to getting sacked - being an empty nester, with an absent husband, and stuck in the middle of the menopause is not helping Mary to think rationally, either.
To top it all, the number of Mary's usual suspects has now been added to in the form of wife-murderer, Liam Mcdowell. Now out on licence, Mcdowell has become a sort of poster-boy for the Men's Rights Activist movement, after publishing a book of letters to his dead wife, called Cuck.
Mary is having difficulty keeping tabs on Mcdowell, as he flaunts his celebrity status and breaks every condition placed on him as part of his release. She soon starts to develop an unhealthy obsession with him, which is not helped when her son embarks on a relationship with Mcdowell's misguided daughter and becomes enamoured of the Men's Rights Activist message.
As Mary's life spirals out of control, she will stop at nothing to impose her own brand of justice, even if it has devastating consequences for her own family.
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Helen Fitzgerald's Worst Case Scenario packs a powerful punch and will leave you with plenty to think about concerning the state of social work today. It is uncompromising about the situations Mary has to deal with everyday and the huge responsibility placed on her to keep the offenders in her charge in line. Some of the things she has to deal with will horrify you and you will find yourself addressing some pretty tricky moral questions about the best way to deal with some of the more "difficult" members of society, and the cost of rehabilitation.
At the same time, there is a deliciously dark brand of humour throughout that turns this book into so much more than your common-or-garden psychological thriller. The irony that Mary lives her own life in freefall, indulging in all the kinds of behaviours she is supposed to be monitoring and eradicating in her charges, will not be lost on you, and you will find yourself chuckling at many points in the story - and then wondering whether you should actually be laughing or crying, as her life inexorably falls apart.
I loved that it was impossible to see where this story was heading, and the chilling climax shocked me to the core. It has been awhile since I have read a book so out-and-out dark as this one, and I have found myself thinking about it a lot since.
What better way to celebrate #Orentober than with a first-class thriller that certainly takes you to the deep, dark pit of the Worst Case Scenario!
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