One of CrimeReads’s Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2021 Longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier 2021 Crime Novel of the Year The “queen of the sucker-punch twist” (Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author) and author of Our House weaves an unputdownable page-turner about a commuter who becomes a suspect in his friend’s mysterious disappearance. It all happens so quickly. One day you’re … disappearance.
It all happens so quickly. One day you’re living the dream, commuting to work by ferry with your charismatic neighbor Kit in the seat beside you. The next, Kit hasn’t turned up for the boat and his wife, Melia, has reported him missing.
When you get off at your stop, the police are waiting. Another passenger saw you and Kit arguing on the boat home the night before and the police say that you had a reason to want him dead. You protest. You and Kit are friends—ask Melia, she’ll vouch for you. And who exactly is this other passenger pointing the finger? What do they know about your lives?
No, whatever danger followed you home last night, you are innocent, totally innocent.
Aren’t you?
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A stunning masterwork of style and suspense. The Other Couple is one of those novels that grabs us from the start, then keeps us up all night by brilliantly peeling back the layers of the story until we arrive — shockingly — at the truth. And I can’t think of another novel in which the characters are so perfectly drawn. You’ll remember Clare and Jamie, Melia and Kit for long after you’ve finished the novel!
Just brilliant; gripping from the first page with an incredible first person narrative and a sense of place that pulls you through the pages fast enough to make your head spin. Louise Candlish just gets better and better, I love her.
A smart, twisty thriller that explores how money can warp relationships and destroy lives. A compulsive read that builds to an unimaginable climax. I couldn’t put it down!
Ruth Ware calls Louise Candlish “the queen of the sucker-punch twist.” I have to agree.
I’m not exactly sure how to put it, but this thriller is absolutely amazing. From the opening pages to the messy conclusion, the author weaves a story with a clever plot and compelling characters. Jamie, the true main character, is relatable in a Gen X way. I know several people who have lost jobs for various reasons and are finding it difficult to re-enter the workforce. Does this mean he is a sympathetic character? Not really. That is not to say that the characters are likable. In fact, I can honestly say that I didn’t particularly care for any of them. Melia and Kit appear to be stereotypical millennials. But are they or do they have a deeper drive? I can’t say much about the plot because it is too twisty and there are too many things that could get spoiled. Let’s just say that I have about a dozen notes of different theories and most of them are incorrect, so it definitely kept me guessing. For more details, please visit Fireflies and Free Kicks. This review was written based on a digital copy of the book from Atria Books.
Author Louise Candlish relates that she was inspired to write The Other Passenger by the 1944 classic film “Double Indemnity” starring Barbara Stanwyck as a femme fatale; generational conflict — in this case between Millennials and members of Generation X; her love of thrillers set on modes of transportation and commuter culture; music — lyrics of songs mentioned provide clues to her characters’ motivations and plans; and real estate. In The Other Passenger, Candlish incorporates a family home — a valuable Georgian town house by the river in which Jamie and Clare reside — which stands in stark contrast to the apartment in a rundown area for which Kit and Melia struggle to pay the monthly rent, The stately home helps emphasize the economic disparity between the couples.
Incorporating those elements, Candlish has crafted a clever, suspenseful, and atmospheric thriller reminiscent of not just “Double Indemnity,” but also “Body Heat,” the 1981 film starring Kathleen Turner and William Hurt. She employs a first-person narrative by Jamie that begins with an interrogation at the pier on a December morning as he attempts to board the river bus and begin his commute to his job as a barista. Kit has not shown up for the morning commute — he has gone missing, and it quickly becomes clear that Jamie has come under suspicion. They were seen fighting the previous night, and Jamie has to ensure that the bruises on his collarbone remain concealed by his sweatshirt. The detectives suggest that it was an unidentified passenger who observed Jamie engaging in suspicious behavior and reported it. But Jamie has no idea who that passenger could be. Or if the informant could be someone related to an earlier event in his life who has been stalking him.
From there, Jamie describes the events of the prior eleven months, beginning with Clare announcing that Melia has begun working at the real estate firm where Clare serves as a rental agent. Jamie and Clare’s relationship is strained because Jamie’s career imploded after what he describes as a “mental health episode suffered a year and a half ago among total strangers” and he has not made satisfactory efforts to resurrect it, in Clare’s estimation. They live in that aforementioned Georgian town house that actually belongs to her parents — they bought it in the 1980’s before gentrification made it a sought-after location. Kit and Melia are would-be actors struggling to pay the bills with Kit toiling at an insurance brokerage. They have unpaid student loans, have defaulted on credit card payments, overdrawn their bank accounts, been evicted, and owe overdue rent for their new residence. “Their salaries barely touch the sides of the money pit.”
Candlish deftly reveals the conflicts in the four characters’ relationships that develop over time. Clare wants Jamie to take advantage of the opportunities she has afforded him to get his life back on track, utterly unable to understand why the former marketing executive seems content working a dead-end job far below the professional standing he previously enjoyed. She is anxious for him to become her equal in every way. Jamie is happy to reap the rewards of Clare’s privilege (they live in that beautiful home rent-free), but emasculated by his understanding that he must sufficiently placate Clare to avoid becoming homeless. “The truth was that by leaving my white-collar career I’d rendered myself as economically helpless as the Ropers.” He is gradually unmasked as a man who is not as principled as he initially seems — a liar who deceives Clare in order to maintain the status quo, justifying his mistakes because he has “to grovel.” Candlish injects jaw-dropping revelations at expertly-timed junctures, compelling the story forward at a steady pace.
Envy plays heavily into the plot as Melia and Kit openly long for and not-so-secretly resent the lifestyle Clare and Jamie enjoy. Jamie, Kit, and Melia characters are, in varying degrees, duplicitous and willing to form alliances and double-cross each other to attain the standard of living to which they aspire without having to earn it. One character is particularly hapless and gullible, failing to observe and heed the clues that Candlish simultaneously presents to him and readers, at his own peril. As the story progresses, allegiances shift, secrets are disclosed, theories proffered and discarded, and those generational divides, coupled with old-fashioned morality, prove to be impactful. Candlish incorporates astute observations about the difficulty young adults face as they emerge from college burdened by student loan debt and find home ownership an elusive dream.
The Other Passenger is a tautly-crafted, character-driven thriller. Replete with with surprising plot twists, the contemporary setting and relatable struggles Candlish’s characters confront enhance its believability, making it thoroughly entertaining.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy and the publisher for a physical copy of the book.
WOW my first read from this Author and won’t be my last.
What an intriguing tale of friendship and relationships gone wrong in a psychological thriller setting.
this book was a sloe start but once I got into it I was hooked!
I look forward to reading this Authors other works.
Thank you to Netgalley, Atria Books and the Author, Louise Candlish for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
A dark suspense thriller with equally dark themes, this book was engrossing for the most part. I must admit that at times the pace seemed too slow and I just wanted it to move along. There were multiple time lines to the story, but it all takes place during the holiday period between Christmas and New Year’s. The narrator is unreliable, so not everything Jamie Buckby says can be believed. After an incident in the tunnel, Jamie leaves his white collar job and becomes a barista at a local coffee shop. He changes his commute to a riverboat and enjoys the freedom to move around and the fresh air that it offers. He also makes new friends on his commute, including Kit. Jamie is married to a wealthy heiress named Clare and the two live in a mansion. Kit is married to Melia and Melia thinks she should be living in a mansion, so there is some class envy involved. When Jamie begins an affair with Melia, the tale of lust and betrayal really took off. When Kit disappears after a visible argument with Jamie, Jamie becomes a suspect of foul play. The author writes a plot that is multi-layered with many twists and subtle clues about the ending. Nevertheless, the ending was a total surprise to me. I was dismayed at the lack of morality among the characters, with bed hopping and overspending rampant. I enjoyed the story but I did not like the characters. They were a bit overdone and not totally believable. The plot itself was thought-provoking and intense at times. The intrigue was there and very well presented.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley, I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guides Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”
The Other Passenger is a delicious page turner. The pace is uneven, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the obvious train wreck that was coming. There are plenty of twists to keep one reading.
Ms. Candlish’s writing is clever, and her character development is good. She artfully places red herrings and misinformation. The story is told solely by Jamie Buckby’s POV; I got a first-hand look at his downward spiral. The Other Passenger is told in dual timelines, toggling between present day and the start of the calendar year where Jamie and his longtime partner, Clare, meet the much younger Kit and Melia.
Each of the couple’s relationship as well as their relationship to the other couple is interesting to track. Money and social class are strong themes within the story, and both greatly influence all the characters attitude and behavior as well as coloring others’ perception of them. Dealing with the aftermath of his panic disorder, Jamie is highly susceptible to drama created in his own mind. Somewhat related, Jamie is in need of a major ego boost/acceptance that he does not feel he is getting from Clare, and consequently, he falls easily into Kit and Melia’s web.
The tangle of the web grows and grows as the story reaches its zenith. I caught the gist of how the story would culminate, but didn’t anticipate the details of the journey. The Other Passenger is well worth the read.
The Other Passenger is finally my very first book by Louise Candlish! I have been meaning to get to a book by her for quite some time now, and I am happy I finally did. This was a slow burn suspense novel that I wouldn’t necessarily call a thriller, but it has a nice mystery element and it did pick up the pace when we get towards the end. I really enjoyed the musical reference to Sublime through Lana Del Ray and the author’s descriptions of the ferry. This book focuses heavily on commuting to work, but that doesn’t mean it is boring. The first thing that caught my eye was definitely the cover and synopsis, and I think going into this one blind is a good idea even though the synopsis creates intrigue instead of saying much about the actual plot. I have seen part of this plot before, but that didn’t stop the book from surprising me as well!
I did take a listen to the audiobook and while I liked it, I think it is better to read this one. The narrator Steven Mackintosh did a good job, but I had that issue where you can occasionally hear him swallowing along with other mouth noises, which I just do not like in my audiobooks. The narration itself was fantastic, but that was enough to drive me up the wall so reading with the eyes is the way to go with this one if these things bother you. I really liked that the whole story (for the most part) is told from the viewpoint of Jamie, and it did help to build tension as well. I saw other readers call this a psychological suspense novel and that is something I definitely agree with. Fans of that genre should enjoy The Other Passenger, and ooooo did I love how the end made me feel! There is a great diabolical edge to this novel, and it makes me really look forward to reading more from Candlish!
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Friends living together, friends meeting on commutes to work, marital affairs, and now a missing friend and Jaime is the last one to see Kit alive.
We follow Jaime and Clare, Kit and Melia, and Gretchen, and Steve as we hear background information on all characters and their current shenanigans.
Everyone seems to be friendly, but some might be too friendly. We find out Jaime and Melia are having an affair. No one seems to know, but the police do when they are questioning Jaime.
There is a lot to absorb about each character, and when Kit goes missing you definitely can’t figure out what’s going on with each of them.
Can any of the characters trust each other? I wouldn’t have trusted any of them.
Just who is the other passenger who seems to be a witness to the fact that Jaime and Kit were in an argument before they left the commuter boat.
This book truly dragged for me, and I couldn’t really connect with any of the characters…..they all were unlikable.
The story line was very confusing as well, but I do have to say the ending twist and the revelations were brilliant. 3/5
This book was given to me by the publisher via NetGalley and in print in exchange for an honest review.
The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish has all the ingredients that a superior thriller must contain. And it does in spades. Jamie and Clare are a typical English couple. They take the daily commute via riverboat up the Thames. And so do Kit and Melia. That is until one day when Jamie and Clare climb aboard Kit does not. The rumors abound as the police dig into this floating locked room mystery made even more urgent because people saw kit having a loud argument with his friend James the night before his disappearance. The police confirm that James had reasons to dislike Kit and therein lies the rub. James is just a regular dude and a friend of the deceased. How can a friend be suspected of killing another friend? And how especially on a large boat with a lot of passengers.
The Other Passenger is creepy and twisty. A who done it that is more intriguing because friends do not kill friends, do they?
I have had my fill of psychological thrillers, there has been an overabundance of them for a couple of years now. It takes a masterful writer to create one that is appealing to me. I read Our House by this same author and found it attention grabbing. When I saw this new title, I requested it right away.
As much as I read, I have never come across the term “unreliable narrator”. Now that I have discovered it, I realize how fitting this term is for this book.
The narrator is Jaime, a middle aged man who has climbed down the corporate ladder instead of up. He and his wife become friends with a younger couple and that leads to all sorts of twisty directions and plot points.
One of the strange things about this book (to me) is that I did not like any of the main characters. Not one of them had any redeeming qualities. They were well developed, just not likeable.
Jaime certainly bit off more than he should have. Lots of twists and turns, right up to the end of the story. Some I sort of predicted, others came right out of the blue.
I always love it when I am able to learn a new word from a book. The word in this book is SOLOPSISM. The word rolls off my tongue and it even looks interesting. While it is not proprietarily relevant to this book, I enjoyed running across it. I will leave the definition in the dictionary, anyone who is interested can look it up.
The ending sums up everything satisfactorily. I cannot really say too much more about this without divulging spoilers. I might not use the word “thriller” to describe it but it certainly is a psychological mind bender.
The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish is a highly recommended psychological thriller.
Jamie Buckby first meets the younger couple Melia and Kit through his partner, Clare. Clare invited the couple over one evening after she met Melia through work. The evening was enjoyable and that was when Jamie talked Kit into joining him in taking the ferry from St. Mary’s into London rather than the London Tube. Jamie was once a marketing executive, but after he had a terrifying panic attack on the London Tube, he became a barista. Clare, however, is a real estate agent who is doing very well and they live in a high end home owned by her parents, so she has been understanding, to a point, about his sudden low-paying job. He and Kit start taking the ferry together and quickly form a small group with two other commuters, Steve and Gretchen. Soon it becomes clear to Clare and Jamie as the lives of the two couples become more entwined that Melia and Kit are drowning in debt, living way beyond their means, and Kit may have a drug problem. Soon things become even more complicated.
Jamie is the narrator. He starts out as an average likeable man, who is approaching 50, but soon it becomes clear that he may not be a reliable narrator or even the man you think he is. His actions, as well as the actions of other characters, might surprise and shock you as the novel continues and the deceptions mount. The description of Jamie’s panic attack in the tube is remarkably captured and you will feel empathy for him that will later be sharply contrasted with his other actions.
This is a very well-written, absolutely irresistible and closely planned and plotted psychological thriller. Everyone is scheming in some way and they all have secrets to hide. The narrative is wonderfully complex, full of details that you need to pay attention to in order to fully appreciate events that will occur later in the novel, because nothing is exactly as it seems and there are clues everywhere. The middle of the narrative slows down as far as action, but there are still details you need to take note of while reading. The final denouement is wonderfully twisty.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Atria Books.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/07/the-other-passenger.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4119621525
The Other Passenger has it all: love, betrayal, secrets, lies, murder and just some downright nasty characters.
My favourite nasty characters are Jamie and Melia who does not even report Kit missing and he is no shining star.
I love it.
The pages turn quickly, there is red herrings and twists and turns that keep the light on at night.
This book would make a great movie.
Louise Candlish never disappoints and The Other Passenger is no exception so put this book close to the top of your TBR pile.
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria books for a twisted but compelling read.
Jamie is nearing fifty. He’s in a long-term relationship and working at a coffee shop. While not the most ideal job, it suits him fine. When he makes new friends on the morning ferry, his life takes a drastic turn. But when his friend Kit goes missing, we see how easily things we thought were true are flipped upside down.
This was a slow read for me. Everything was told at a leisurely pace, often repeating some of the day-to-day. I wasn’t all that invested in the characters, and I didn’t particularly care for Jamie. His lack of ambition, combined with his sheer stupidity, was astounding. In that, Candlish wrote his character well. The same goes for Kit, although I felt the fact he was so against people with money was drilled into the storyline too often. It wasn’t until we were nearing the final 30% that I got drawn into the story. While not the right fit for me, I’m sure others will enjoy this story. Thank you, Atria Books, for sending this along.
More Twisted Than The London River It Takes Place On. This is one of those hyper-twisted books where for much of the tale, you think you’re getting one thing… only for it to flip, then flip again, then again and again and again. Told mostly in two eras, the days immediately after a particular person goes missing and the year prior to that event, this is a tale of intrigue and, let’s be quite honest, quite deplorable characters. Seriously, if you are the type that has to “like” the characters or at least one of them… well, there really isn’t much of that to go around here. These characters are all horrible in some way or another, though hey, perhaps that is life. Overall a compelling story with an ending you won’t believe. Very much recommended.
The Other Passenger
Written by Louise Candlish
General Fiction (Adult), Mystery & Thrillers
Are you looking for a good thriller to get you through the lazy, hot days of summer, then look no further!
The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish is a mind game of epic proportions. Candlish take readers deep down in a rabbit hole of lies, deceit, betrayal and when you leave it’s like you’ve been through one of those old wringer washing machines, your mind is well blown.
James Buckley becomes the storyteller, as he should be, he is central to the crazy that takes place in this story.
The Other Passenger has four main characters, James, his partner Clare and Melia Roper (nee Quinn) and Kit (Christopher) Roper. This entire rollercoaster ride begins with Clare and Melia becoming friends at the Estate office, where Clare is a partner.
They start having dinners together and Kit and James even ride the river bus across the Thames to work daily. There is an age difference in the couples and along with that a difference in finances as well. You know that thing people say, the younger generation thinks everything should be handed to them, while the Gen X’ers have worked hard for what they had.
This gap between the couples tends to grow as each dinner passes and there comes a point when James and Clare think it might be time to cut back on their social activities. As Kit gets more aggressive in his conversations with James, you tend to agree with James and Clare’s idea.
That’s where the twists come in. Once those twists come, they come fast and furious. You have trouble keeping up with the narrative because it is blowing up, event after event. Little explosions that ignite the other explosions that just keep on coming.
I didn’t time how long this took story took to read. I read it in one sitting, non-stop, could not put it down and when I reached the end I knew that however long it had taken me to read, it was time well spent.
Thank you #Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the opportunity to read this amazing thriller.
Jamie and Claire are living the suburban dream- or so it seems to everyone on the outside. What they don’t know is that Jamie is underemployed, working at a coffee shop, and Claire is supporting the both of them with family money. When they meet Kit and Melia, a twenty-something couple, the four become instant friends. Jamie and Kit ride the boat into London for work together, followed by almost daily after-work drinks. Until Jamie disembarks the boat one day and is confronted by police officers who tell him that Kit is missing, and Jamie was the last person to see him alive.
Louise Candlish brings “Gone Girl” to a London ferry, with jealousy, infidelity and twisting suspense at its core, in her new novel “The Other Passenger”.
The majority of the characters in this novel are completely unlikable (the only exception being Jamie’s wife, Claire). Initially, I disliked Jamie, then I sympathized with him, but by the end I really disliked him. Melia and Kit were shallow millennials that were trying to live above their means, and neither of them were particularly relatable. However, the characters were unlikable on purpose, and this fact alone did not detract from my enjoyment of the novel.
About halfway through the novel, the story slowed a bit, and it took a bit of effort to keep going, but the first major unexpected twist hits about two thirds of the way through and I can tell you, it knocked my socks off! Once this twist started, more kept coming and they didn’t let up until the very end of the novel. I was surprised by the ending, and enjoyed the page-turning drama that led to the satisfying, justice-is-(almost)-served conclusion.
I am a fan of Candlish’s work, and am honoured to have read a few of her novels in advance, and “The Other Passenger” definitely hits the mark. Four people, all completely different from each other and bonded by jealousy and selfishness, tie together intricately when one of the protagonists go missing. Who did it, and for what reason? Candlish can definitely tell a suspenseful yarn, and this one left me guessing until the end.
Author Louise Candlish drops the reader into a group of commuters, friends by circumstance being on the same long ferry commute in London, who bond hating their jobs and comparing beyond their station. The two prominent couples are Kit Roper, an overbearing, sophisticated young man with a beautiful wife, Melia Roper, who live beyond their means. Then there is Jaimie, advancing beyond middle age, losing his marketing career and now working at a coffee shop, while his partner, Clare, the primary earner from a well-off family that had gifted them their regal home. The intrigue begins when Kit disappears on Christmas Eve, after a drunken fight with Jaimie, and the police suspect the reserved, passive Jaimie after he returns from holidays with Clare. Not everything is as it seems, of course, and relationships become complicated and intertwined, as motivations and explanations subtly change when police pressure shines new light upon seemingly innocent (or nefarious) actions.
While some reviewers didn’t like the characters, I didn’t mind them and enjoyed the shifts. The ending, though, wasn’t quite what I hoped for and extended longer than needed. But with my busy schedule these days, I consumed the book in two sittings and found it an enjoyable, quick read.