A great thriller which is packed full of twists and turns keeping me gripped from start to finish. Very cleverly written and definitely worth a read. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

The Other Passenger is a twisty read that I read in a day.
James Buckby is the main character, he lives with long term girlfriend, Clare, it is her parents house in London that they live at and James could never afford anything like this. Clare gets friendly with a young work colleague, Melia and invites her and her partner, Kit for dinner. This starts a little Saturday night thing until James thinks Kits involvement with drugs is getting out of hand. Unbeknown to Clare, James and Melia have started an affair and this may be the worst thing James has ever done.
I liked the storyline and the twists and turns, there wasn’t one character that I liked and they all seemed to be money orientated, which for the first third was a little heavy but seeing as the book evolves around money I can see why the path had to be laid. I really enjoyed this and would highly recommend.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

This book is definitely a slow-burner, but maybe a bit too much! It took very long to get going and with characters that made it very difficult to warm to them, it was not a very enjoyable read fornme I'm afraid.

The other passenger written by Louise Candlish, is her best crime thriller so far. Set in London around the commute to work on the river boat the first half is quite slow, Jaime is picked up by the police 4 days after his commuter buddy Kit is reported missing. As he describes the history of their relationship to the police we find out about their partners, jobs and lifestyle, all fairly well written just a little pedestrian. About half way through it gets a little more interesting when Jamie is chief suspect of Kits murder, with a few twists that are not too obvious.

The characters are all what I would call 'typical Londoners', self obsessed, money grabbing, fools, however, they make for good reading! The relationships between Jaime, his girlfriend Clare and his friend Kit and his girlfriend Melia are cleverly described and the ending is not how I imagined.

Overall a readable thriller, if you make it through the first half you’ve earned the drama and thrill of the second half.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for the ARC.

“The Other Passenger” is Louise Candlish’s latest crime mystery featuring a 48 year old claustrophobic commuter Jamie, who is accused of killing his friend ‘Kit’ after his sudden disappearance over Christmas 2019.
Sadly for me, this story didn’t quite work. I found both Jamie and Kit very one dimensional, constantly referring to the characters as either one of them wanting money or other other having it. I also didn’t ‘get’ the friendships/relationships considering the age difference between Jamie and Kit and their two completely opposite personalities. All the cast were unlikeable and flawed and weren’t particularly interesting enough to invest yourself in them.
I was also very disappointed as to how the author portrayed 48 year old Jamie as borderline geriatric and over the hill. Being of a similar age myself, I don’t feel any of the emotions that Jamie does about his age or his attitude towards those younger than him.
The storyline was pretty much non existent for a lot of the book and exceedingly slow moving, only well into the second half did it peak my interest and pick up a bit of intrigue but the complicated and convoluted denouement was a tad unrealistic. What I thought was excellently portrayed was how the author covered claustrophobia and how it effected Jamie when he commuted. The attacks and emotional sensations he endured felt very realistic and I fully understood his fears as he felt trapped on a packed tube train. Very well researched and an interesting theme for a story.
I normally love this author’s work, I found “Our House” highly entertaining so maybe on this occasion the story just wasn’t for me. I’m sure die hard Candlish fans will devour this book with fervour and I will continue to read more by her in the future regardless.

3 stars

The book starts with the main character being interview about the disappearance of his friend and fellow riverboat passenger and then is interspersed with chapters revealing the past and a continuation of the investigation.⁣
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I really enjoyed the riverboat element as it’s not one I have read about before and I think people who know London well will enjoy all the references to locations.⁣
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The ground work is there so if you pride yourself on your amateur detective skills then I reckon you have a change of working this one out but in no way does that ruin the book as the ride the author takes you on is brilliant.⁣
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Fans of Our House will absolutely love this latest instalment from Louise Candlish.⁣
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Thank you to @netgalley and @simonschusteruk for my #gifted copy in exchange for review

I will admit, a bit part of why I wanted to read this one was due to the synopsis referencing commuting via riverboat - I’ve never heard of that in London! Plus Louise Candlish is one of those authors who I’ve always been intrigued by, but never got around to buying. Add in a plot steeped in mystery and intrigue and it sounded like my perfect book.

However, despite the rather unique plot I struggled to engage with this book. I think a big part of the issue for me was just how unlikeable everyone was, especially Jamie, who seemed to spend most of the book making judgemental rude comments about young people and their shortcomings. Also, I get that the financial divide between generations was a part of the plot, but when every conversation revolves around money it becomes quite dull and repetitive. I ended up skipping quite a lot of the book just to get to the big reveal of what happened.

I’ve never read a book by this author before, and I’ve got to admit I probably wouldn’t read one again. She is clearly a very skilled author, and the writing was good, but personally I’m not a fan of books where all of the characters are unlikeable and hard to connect with, and other reviews have said that that is a common feature of her work. However, if that doesn’t bother you then definitely give this a go, as the plot was interesting and the writing was very skilled.

Disclaimer - I received an advance reading copy of this from NetGalley. This has not affected my review in any way, and all opinions are my own.

After reading Cavendish's other works I was excited to read this. It was another gripping read from a fantastic author. Look forward to reading more

I love Louise Candlish's writing and her twists and turns keep you hooked on her stories. This book was a great read and definitly grabbed my attention. Very enjoyable.

The Other Passenger is what you would call a slow burn. Maybe just a little bit too much of a slow burn for me. The way the story plays out you get to see both the past and the present. Seeing how the characters have ended up in the situations they have found themselves in.

The main character, Jamie finds himself in quite a pickle and I was intrigued as to which way the story would play out. I’m not quite sure why but I couldn’t quite find Jamie likeable. This doesn’t usually bother me but it was a niggle. I guess I just tried to put it to the back of my mind and get on with the story but I have to admit it was there hovering. There are plenty of secrets and twists to this story and it did take me on quite a journey. One that I was never quite sure where it was taking me.

I guess overall I have conflicting feelings about this book and maybe it is just me. I do think other readers will enjoy The Other Passenger because there is a clever and twisty nature to it!

Twisty, turny, thrilling and unputdownable!

This has it all! A cast of unlikeable characters created a book full of envy, wealth inequalities, domestic drama and a proper punch you in the face twist!

I have only read one book from Louise Candlish before this and I have enjoyed both of them.

I struggled to put this down!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC

Missing Passenger Sparks Suspense....
Enjoyable suspense from the talented and consistent Louise Candlish. Engaging tale with characters that are, however, really hard to like but that kept me gripped from the first page to the last with twists aplenty along the way.

Jamie and Clare have the perfect life.

What a creepy, distasteful, and utterly compelling world Louise Candlish has created in The Other Passenger. I loved every word. I felt totally tense throughout because Jamie's first person voice speaks straight to the reader, drawing them in and making them complicit in the action so that I felt excited, unnerved and almost guilty. By the end of the book I felt I had experienced every moment with Jamie et al. 

Indeed, the characters in The Other Passenger are awful, brilliant and fascinating. I loathed each in turn, I felt empathy for each in turn, and Louise Candlish so manipulated my responses I didn't know who was innocent, guilty or deserving of compassion or disgust. This is absolutely brilliant writing. The people in The Other Passenger are clearly depicted so that they leap from the page vividly and I forgot I was reading a story, but felt I was listening to Jamie in person. Melia and Kit in particular made my flesh crawl but I needed to know every intimate detail about them with the same level of fascination as Jamie has.

The plot, as I would expect from Louise Candlish, is carefully wrought and plotted, so that by half way through the novel when I have usually worked out what is going on, I had no clue as to what the outcome might be. The drip feeding of information, the unreliable nature of the characters and the rapid events meant I was ensnared and unable to put the book down. I had to know what happened next.

I thought the menacing nature of the setting supported the plot perfectly too. The murky, swirling history of the Thames turns a seemingly innocuous action of taking the riverbus to work into a threatening, skin crawling experience. I truly felt tense and this effect is enhanced by reference to real events from the past so that the reader loses sight of the fact they are reading a story rather than a real life account.

The Other Passenger is a brilliant exploration of being careful what you wish for with themes of emotional and sexual betrayal, truth and lies, affluence and poverty, ambition and acceptance making for a thought provoking as well as entertaining read. Louse Candlish made me consider how far we judge others by their jobs, homes and possessions and she shows us just how wrong we can be on so many levels. This is a sophisticated, multi-layered book that mesmerised and repelled me in equal measure because it made me consider the blackness of my own soul compared with others. It's so good!

If The Other Passenger doesn't become one of THE books of the summer there's no justice. It's a cracker and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Fantastic novel with a great storyline throughout. Loved the development of the characters with all not quite as it seems.

This story about Jamie. He gets the river bus to work everyday with his friend Kit. After an argument on the previous night Kit doesn’t turn up to make their usual journey. Jamie isn’t concerned and assumes that Kit is suffering from a hangover. When he gets off the river bus he is greeted by the police who informed him that Kit has been reported missing by his wife and that a witness on the river bus reported seeing them argue.

Unfortunately I really didn’t enjoy this book very much. I read it in one sitting because I knew if I put this down I wouldn’t have picked it back up again. I predicted very early on what I thought that the outcome would be and I was correct. I didn’t like any of the characters. Apart from Clare who is Jamie’s girlfriend every one of the other characters are self entitled and shallow. To be perfectly honest I found the plot quite slow and for most of the book I was bored. For some reason there was constant digs at young people which started to get really irritated in the end.

I'm not a big fan of this genre but wanted to try this book having really enjoyed Our House. I do think Louise Candlish has a flair for skewering privilege and pretension, and for drawing readers into the lives of people they'd 'love to hate' in real life, which entirely sums up my feelings about the characters in The Other Passenger. It cracks along and somehow she can get away with the kind of twist that usually irritate me. For me it was a quick and entertaining read which had the weird bonus of transporting me to central London during lockdown. 6 miles from my house and it feels like the other side of the world.

Woah what a book. This has twists and turns on almost every page that makes you hungry for more. Unputdownable.

A total gripper from beginning to end. Any plot details could result in serious spoilers. Kept me tossing and turning the events over in my mind.
A chilling unravelling of events, twisted alibis and plot twists.
Absolutely brilliant ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow a big thank you to Simon & Schuster UK for accepting my request on Net Galley.

I have read a few of Louise's previous books so was thrilled to be approved and dived straight in.

Jamie (James) travels to work via the Thames Clipper after events which he will not use the underground.
Jamie soon meets fellow commuter Kit and they soon become friends. Meeting up outside with their partners Clare and Melia.

After a Christmas drink night out Kit goes missing, and Jamie is the last person to see him.

What has happened to Kit? And Who is the other Passenger?

Great work Louise I was hooked from the start and loved they way it went from the present time to the beginning of the year.

This is such a thrilling exciting edge of your seat read that will have you guessing all the way though, it is so twisty. I stayed up until 3 o Clock this morning finishing it off as I just couldn't put it down.

5 stars from me, I highly recommend you pick this book up.

Louise Candlish has pulled another masterpiece out of the bag!

An unusual thriller in the sense that it is a story of deception across households and largely based on the the London Commuter boat. However, this really is a compelling read.

The protagonist is utterly believable. In fact, all the characters are very plausible, normal, with flaws and with secrets of their own - but no more secretive or flawed than we all are.

The story line is based on a simple and somewhat traditional plot - money and passion - and is all the better for it. However, it is written SO well that we can probably all identify with it in some capacity or other.

Candlish's clever planning, no nonsense approach, simple twists and superb writing makes for an altogether gripping and highly enjoyable read.

Thank you NetGalley and to Simon & Schuster UK for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.