Portobello Book Blog

I have mostly been reading what I would term feel good fiction over the past few months, with just a handful of crime novels. The Other Passenger was the first psychological thriller I’ve read in ages and what a cracking read it was!

Kit travels to work by riverboat in London and just before Christmas, he goes missing, Jamie, one of the group he regularly travels with, is questioned by the police as he was probably last to see him. Something has obviously happened that evening so just what is Jamie hiding and what has happened to Kit?

The story shifts back and forward over the previous year from when Jamie and his wife Claire met Kit and his wife Melia. Gradually, the author reveals how this friendship very quickly became intense and how the dynamics between the four developed and changed over time. Obviously Jamie has plenty he doesn’t know want the police to know about, but is he the only one?

The story was told from the perspective of Jamie who was adamant that he was innocent. I really felt he was a very unreliable narrator though as he frequently lies, even if only by omission, to the police and to his wife. I do like a book with an unreliable narrator or two as it really makes me desperate to find out the truth. Louise Candlish so cleverly put ideas in my head about what was going on, only for me to realise how spectacularly wrong I was! It takes some skill to write a book with generally unlikable characters that I will want to read but the author achieved this by making the story so compelling.

The Last Passenger is a gripping page turner about secrets and lies right from the first page. It’s a dark, twisty and very addictive read.

My thanks to Jess Barratt at Simon & Schuster UK for sending me a review copy of the book. The Other Passenger is available now in hardback, ebook and audiobook versions. The paperback version will follow early next year. Please support a local bookshop if you are able to. Otherwise, you will find buying options for various retailers on the Simon & Schuster website here: The Other Passenger

From the back of the book

It all happens so quickly. One day you’re living the dream, commuting to work by riverbus with your charismatic neighbour 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?

About the author

Louise Candlish is the Sunday Times bestselling author of fourteen novels. Our House, a number one bestseller in paperback, ebook and audiobook won the Crime & Thriller Book of the Year at the 2018 British Book Awards, was longlisted for the 2019 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and was shortlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. It is now in development for a major TV series with Red Planet Pictures, producers of Death in Paradise. Louise lives in London with her husband and daughter.