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Audio Book The Other Passenger with Free PDF EDITION Download Now!
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 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?
At this time of writing, The Audiobook The Other Passenger has garnered 10 customer reviews with rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Not a bad score at all as if you round it off, it’s actually a perfect TEN already. From the looks of that rating, we can say the Audiobook is Good TO READ!
Audio Book The Other Passenger with Free PDF EDITION!
This is the first book I’ve read written by Louise Candlish. On the one hand, I liked it. The beginning pulled me right in, though the middle bogged down a bit, the victim of a set up that went on far too long. I was ready to abandon the book, wondering where all the twists were, but I’d heard and read so many good things about it that I persevered. The final third of the book picked up the pace and was filled with the twists and turns many readers are raving about. They were good, though I found them a bit predictable. Still, I spent three or four happy hours reading, and I’ll probably read more of this author’s work.On the other hand, three of the main characters in the book were odious; the protagonist wasn’t odious enough. (I didn't love to hate him.) If we’re going to have a villain narrate, he’s got to be really bad. This one wasn’t evil; he was just kind of pathetic. No, really pathetic. He blows the best thing in his lousy life. He doesn’t pick up on clues that are glaring at him, begging to be noticed. He was a major jerk, and I just kind of wanted to kick him in the behind, but there are others in the book who were far worse. There’s really no one for the reader to identify with or root for, so if you’re the type of reader who needs to identify with a character, better skip this one.If characterization was a little weak, and it was, the author really excelled at description. The book takes place in London, a city in which I’ve lived and worked (singing). I loved the setting, although I lived in a Dulwich Tudor, another part of London that is farther away from the city center and lot leafier than areas closer to the city center. Like the book’s protagonist, I, too, can be claustrophobic, especially if underground, and especially if underground in a tunnel under water, so I’ve taken Thames river transport on several occasions. It was really nice to read about all the things the protagonist saw as his boat made its way down the river. (In case you don’t know, Prospect Square doesn’t really exist, nor does the St. Mary’s stop.)The descriptions of the beautiful Georgian townhouse Jamie (our protagonist) lived in with his partner of many years, Clare, were also very interesting. I loved reading about the townhouse almost as much as I loved the unraveling of the very intricate and convoluted plot, and make no mistake, it is convoluted despite the middle bog and its ending predictability.While reading this book, my first surprise came when I learned the author, and at least two of the book’s central characters, Kit and Melia, considered Jamie and Clare, who were still in their forties, “old.” For god’s sake, I thought. What fortysomething, or fifty or sixtysomething is considered “old” by today’s standard? I personally know people who are septuagenarians who regularly run marathons. Granted, most marathon runners are going to be younger than seventy, but most people in their seventies are quite fit and active and garden or cycle, etc., on a regular basis.Even if you’re like me and don’t consider someone in their forties to be “old,” Jamie and Clare were still old enough (just) to be the parents of Kit and Melia, a couple they seem to have adopted as best buddies. The relationship is a strange one from the get-go, not just because of the twenty-year age difference, but also because Jamie and Clare are well settled and well off financially, though Jamie is “figuring some things out” as the book opens, while Kit and Melia are struggling, to put it mildly.The plot revolves around Jamie and Clare’s desire to be young again and Kit and Melia’s desire to have all the money they want, without having to work for it. (Clare’s Edinburgh parents are wealthy, and the townhouse had been a gift from them.) Of course, complications result from desiring what one cannot have or doesn’t want to work for, and in this case, the complications certainly test just how far each person will go to get what he or she wants.Even though the pace of the book picked up quite nicely in the last third, there were still things that bothered me, the biggest being an impersonation. As a reader, I caught on to this right away, so the character should have, too, yet he doesn’t see it until he can see it in retrospect, which just made him look stupid.The book’s ending left me “sort of” frustrated. I don’t want to spoil the whole thing, but if you’re the kind of reader who needs to see the good folks rewarded and the bad folks punished, you might take issue with the very end yourself.And, this is a quibble, but it bothered me the entire book: I’m a very visual person, so I always picture the characters as I read. In the beginning of the book, Melia’s hair is described as a glossy dark bob (and bobs are straight and sleek). Later descriptions of her hair have it longer and softly curled. Sometimes twisted into a chignon. Not a bob at all, and far too soon for a bob to have grown out. So, which is it? Straight bob or long curls? As I said, this is probably a quibble, and there are no doubt readers it won’t bother at all, but I found it maddening because it was such an easy thing for the author to correct.If you can tolerate a fairly straightforward set-up, and a set-up that goes on too long, you’ll be handsomely rewarded in the final third of the book. If you need depth of characterization, you won’t find it here. The characters do remain “in character,” but they are shallowly drawn and never really develop much of a personality or any depth.If you’re looking for a pleasant way to while away a few hours, this book will fill the bill. It’s fun, despite being dark. If you’re looking for a highly literary novel that will stay with you long after you’ve read the last page, better keep looking. (You might try John Banville or Banville’s mysteries written under the pseudonym “Benjamin Black.” The "Inspector Lynley" mysteries by Elizabeth George are also spectacularly wonderful, and they never bog down.)A solid three stars for this one, but no more, really. (Also posted on my account at Goodreads)
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