The unreliable narrator vibe is strong here—you know that going in, especially with that last line of the synopsis: You are innocent, totally innocent. Aren’t you? That little flicker of doubt hints at the hidden layers we discover. Knowing in advance that the narrator suffers from claustrophobia made me perk my head up as well - you don't typically see that in a synopsis. It's a good mystery with an interesting premise.

A gripping psychological thriller from start to finish with a plethora of twists and conniving characters. No one is safe and no one is to believed in this sordid tale. For fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley.

This was definitely a slow burn. I really didn’t think I liked the book, but then the twist knocked the wind out of me! Drug trouble or murder? There was a lot of mundane build up, but the ending was worth the read.

This story plays out like a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The characters and their voices play the story straight, you'd never suspect them of anything. But as the story back tracks and unwinds, their stories don't quite match the facts or the clues left behind. Two couples in different stages of their life come together and one of the husbands is missing. Follow the clues closely and you might beat the reveal but it's a grand surprise.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for the ARC of the latest by Louise Candlish.

I love a good mystery, but regrettably this one did not work for me. I cared about 0 of the characters and found the main character to be a nimrod.

The story was incredibly slow. Around the halfway mark I considered DNF'ing it, but I still wasn't 💯 sure what happened, so I pushed forward. I was hopeful things would pick up towards the end, and although it did, the ending was somewhat lackluster and it was too little, too late.

I would probably read another book by Candlish, just to see if this one was a fluke for me, but I would not recommend adding this one to the top of your list.

I like to refer to Louise Candlish’s particularly engaging style of psychological thriller as “real estate thrillers”. I say this, of course, with a bit of a wink. I’ve referred to them before as “neighborhood noir” as well, and this is probably the more conventional subgenre, but it seems like there is a bit more to it. Now that I’ve read a half-dozen books by her, there is always a piece of real estate heavily involved in the escalation within the plot. In The Other Passenger, it that real estate is the house that caused a thousand tiny fractures in a relationship and led to the other events. Another must-read psychological thriller from Louise Candlish!

The Characters

Jamie is our narrator and he is married to Clare. Jamie and Clare are around the age of 50, and have been married for years. While Clare is successful and has family money, she never holds that over Jamie’s head. But it does frustrate her a bit that Jamie just doesn’t care about working. In fact, he actively evades her offers to help him find a new career path or fund retraining, and privately he holds all of this over her head. She’s also the owner of their house, which bothers Jamie though Clare is kind-hearted and happy to share what is hers with her husband.

Melia is a new junior colleague of Clare’s at her firm and she is married to Kit. Melia and Kit are younger than Jamie and Clare, around the age of 30. And Melia is stunningly beautiful, while Kit is a gregarious sort. Both are wannabe actors forced into other professions. At first the two couples become fast friends, despite their obvious gap in age and wealth. As the book picks up, the barbs from Kit towards Jamie about being a tenant in their own home begin to fester.

The Plot

Jamie seems to have a great life. He is married to Clare, who has family wealth and has bought them a beautiful home. Their marriage is a happy one. Sure, they are now 50 and don’t have the excitement of people in their 20s. But overall things are good. Jamie suffers from claustrophobia which makes train commuting difficult. But in a brilliant move, he now has a group of friends who call themselves the “river rats” and take the water taxi to work.

Until one of his friends Kit goes missing around Christmas. Kit is the husband to Clare’s coworker Melia, and the couple is young, attractive, and fun. What started as a great friendship between the two couples has spiraled. Melia reports Kit missing and when Jamie departs the river taxi, he is stopped by two police officers. They have heard that the night Kit went missing, Kit and Jamie were in a heated argument on the river taxi. Who is the other passenger that reported it? Surely Jamie won’t go down for a crime he didn’t commit… right?

Overall Thoughts

Just when you think you know where this book is headed, think again! The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish totally blew me away. There are layers here, the first and most important being the relationship between the four main characters and central couples, Jamie, Clare, Kit, and Melia. Jamie and Kit seem both drawn to one another as friends and kindred spirits, separated by two decades, and equally explosive. It felt that their friendship was just a ticking bomb waiting to blow up.

Kit judges Jamie (while also admiring him) for having fallen into a marriage that gives Jamie the lifestyle Kit wants. Jamie works in a coffee shop, so not exactly a career, and he lives in a huge and beautiful piece of real estate that most in London can only dream of. Clare is a supportive wife. Sure, she wants Jamie to have a bit more ambition, but not because she cares how much money he makes. It is because she wants him to be fulfilled and he clearly isn’t.

Meanwhile Jamie covets Kit’s life—he is young, attractive, and married to the beguiling Melia. Melia is stunningly gorgeous and alluring. Jamie can’t not notice it. But he is happy with Clare, isn’t he? Why would Jamie do anything to jeopardize the great life he has?

The dynamic between Clare and Jamie fascinated me. Clare is so inherently good—but at the same time there is an element Candlish hints at (without ever outright saying) where the reader understands that Clare is able to be that way because of her privilege. It is easy to have a simple and kind life when money isn’t a worry. Jamie feels that he is beholden to Clare because of that, and over the course of the novel what should be a small insecurity over their power imbalance grows into something much more substantial.

Jamie resents Clare. He knows that if their relationship goes south, he will be left out of the wonderful life he has with Clare. He is a visitor to this life, but not a resident in it. His visa is temporary and could be taken away in the blink of an eye. This makes it all the more compelling when he seems to intentionally engage in actions that could jeopardize the very thing that makes his life so enviable.

I think it is easy to feel for both Jamie and Clare in different ways while reading this book, and to roll your eyes at Kit and Melia. In a way, Kit and Melia also have things that others covet. They are young, beautiful, charismatic, dynamic, and engaging. Everyone wants to be around them. And these qualities mean they have an advantage towards being successful if they want to. But similar to Jamie, Kit seems to be a saboteur of his own life. The two constantly seem one chapter away from blowing up their lives, or perhaps their friendship.

A compelling and sharp psychological thriller that had me tense through the very final page!

This story was great! Now I will say upfront that the ending was a bit predictable but even that being the case this book had it all. Mystery, intrigue, unreliable narrator. It really had me on my toes through the whole book and kept me turning the pages. I love in a book when you know each detail is important, but which one is going to be the one to help you get the ending, you aren't sure. This book was full of that kind of thing. Books that make you not want to disturb you reading because you just need to know what happens next are my favorite. You start to read at almost a fevered pace just to find out. This story did that for me. I will definitely be picking up more by this author!

After middle-aged Jamie has a claustrophobia induced panic attack on the tube on his way to work, he seeks out another way to commute to work. The riverboat. It is here that he meets the young Kit, who happens to be his neighbor.

They spend every morning off to work together and every afternoon on the ride home drinking with their other water buddies.

But one morning, Kit doesn’t show up and Jamie finds the police waiting for him, suspecting him in the disappearance of his friend. What follows is twist after twist as we come to find Jamie might not be such a reliable narrator after all…

I inhaled this story and was thoroughly suprised by the end. Thank you Atria and NetGalley for my copy of this psychological thriller!

Louise Candlish's books are no stranger to this blog -- I reviewed Our House and Those People a few years ago. While I really enjoyed Our House, Those People started off strong and then petered out. The Other Passenger has the same issue.

Jamie is our narrator -- he lives in an expensive home owned by his girlfriend, Clare. Even though Clare tries to get him career counseling, Jamie is content to work every day as a barista in a coffee shop. After meeting his new neighbors, Kit and Melia, Jamie decides to join Kit in commuting to his job via riverboat. But one day, Kit isn't aboard the boat and goes missing. After Melia reports Kit missing, two detectives interview Jamie since another passenger witnessed them arguing.

After the "big twist" (which Candlish is known for) was revealed, The Other Passenger took me a long time to finish. Most of the book was exciting, but the ending was predictable. I would put this square in the middle of enjoyment between Our House and Those People.

MY RATING - 3

This was a phenomenal book with wealth, ones who want to be wealthy, deceit and infidelity. I honestly did not know where this book was going.

We have Clare and Jamie, an older couple who meet Kit and Melia, a younger couple who wants it all and wants it now. When Kit goes missing, everything starts to unravel for Jamie.

There were so many plot twists that I didn't know what was coming next. I could not put this one down.

I will likely be the odd one out on not being swept away by this. The setting was fantastic and the writing pulled you in. The characters were ones you love to hate. .I felt like the twist was easy to see coming. There were small things that were a great play on the situation.

Great read, but the ending and solvability made me struggle a bit.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book.

Ohhhh helloooooo you twisted little thriller you...... I loved it! I loved Our House and when Berkley offered to send me a copy of The Other Couple..well I couldn't say yes fast enough. It literally went to the top of my TBR the second I got it. First off the cover is amazing!

You meet another couple, a younger hip couple. You hit it off but you are unsure why. You don't have alot in common. They are at a different chapter of their life- they are younger, financially unstable, and they want to party all night. All the things you are not. Yet you want to desperately have them in your life, more and more- it is like a drug. Like a drug problem it all goes wrong, you hit rock bottom and then what?

When one of the foursome goes missing...well accusations start flying. Envy, privilege, deceptions and a couple of huge twists that I certainly did not see coming. What more could you ask for?!!

I made it about a third of the way through this book and it did not capture my interest in the least. I found the storytelling and dialogue boring and tried to make myself want to finish reading, but I could not. The characters were not engaging and the storyline was not captivating in the first 1/4 - 1/3 of the book.

The twist, while not entirely unforeseen, was fun and fun to read. The wrap up was a little too...tidy, but you'll have that.

I could not get in to this storyline at all. I really tried to read this one and found myself at 40% and was BORED out of my mind.

This is my first book by the author, and I went in blind. I enjoyed the book, but found it somewhat predictable. I do feel like the writing was great and I would recommend the book. The story was realistic and well done!

This book had me guessing all of the wrong things. I was certain I figured out the red herrings and the slight details of foreshadowing. I couldn't have been more wrong. Everything adds up and nothing makes sense. I absolutely loved reading this book. It went a little longer than I would have expected, but the story line was still very well written.

As usual for the author it’s a super slow start with all the action at the very end. Requires much patience but the ending is really strong so be prepared

I really enjoyed Louise Candlish's Our House and Those People, so I was excited to read The Other Passenger...and it did not disappoint! This book was incredibly hard to put down, and though the characters weren't particularly likeable, I loved reading about them. This thriller is full of twists and turns, and it really kept me guessing...I highly recommend it! Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review The Other Passenger. : )

This was my first book by this author. On a cold December day Kot misses his boat that he shares with his neighbor. The story lays out the story of a missing Kit that is reported missing after an argument on the boat. There are lots of twists and turns along the way to fighting out what happened. The end is def worth it.