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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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.
I was intrigued with the blurb, but unfortunately this was disappointing. It’s a slow burn murder mystery with characters that are not likable and told by one POV with flashbacks. Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and the author for a gifted copy. This is my honest review.
A novel like a roulette wheel at full tilt: smooth, hypnotic, relentless, exciting — and ultimately, just as unpredictable… Louise Candlish stitches characters together artfully, easily — wives to husbands, neighbors to neighbors, friends to enemies — only to unpick her threads one by one by one, with merciless precision, until those lives are as frayed as our fingernails. Like every Candlish thriller, The Other Couple is psychological suspense at its most elegant and sinister.
What a stunner! The Other Couple is equal parts riveting, twisty, and unsettling. I constantly questioned which of these characters I could trust — the answer, to my delight, turned out to be none of them. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!
Dark and clever and terrific in all its twists and turns.