Book Review #18 - The passenger by Daniel Hurst

 

The passenger by Daniel Hurst

About the book

She takes the same train every day. But this is a journey she’ll never forget.

Amanda is a hardworking single mum, completely focused on her job and her daughter, Louise.  She’s been saving for years and now, finally, she can afford to give up work and chase her dream.

But then, on her commute home from London to Brighton, she meets a charming stranger - who seems to know everything about her.

He delivers an ultimatum . She needs to give him the code for the safe where she keeps her savings before the train reaches Brighton - or she’ll never see Louise again.

Convinced that the threat is real, Amanda is stunned, horrified. She knows she should give him the code, but she can’t. Because she also knows there is a terrible secret in that safe which will destroy her life and Louise’s too…

About the author

Daniel Hurst is the author of several popular psychological thrillers including Til Death Do Us Part and The Tutor, as well as The Influencing Trilogy.

He is also the creator of The 20 Minute Series, the series of books which readers have called “original” and “addictive.”

You can visit him at www.danielhurstbooks.com

My take

Amanda, a single mother to seventeen-year-old Louise, is a hardworking woman, who commutes daily from Brighton to London for her nine to five job. Her dream has always been to be a full time writer, and finally she has saved enough money to give wings to her dream, and she is serving the last few days of her intimation. But she has no idea about the stranger following her from quite some days, who knows a lot more about her than she can even imagine, and is about to blackmail her into giving up her life savings in return of her daughter’s safety. But the safe that treasures her money back at home doesn’t contain just money. It contains something that could destroy Amanda’s and her daughter’s lives. What does she do?

The story is extremely fast paced and the build up is tense. Seventy percent of the story happens during the one hour transit from London to Brighton, yet it is extremely gripping. The story shuttles between the POV’s of the four main characters of the story, Amanda, Louise, the stranger and his partner in crime, James. The narrative also shuffles between the past and the present. But even though the theme is simple, the incidents that keep unfolding one by one keep us hooked. The narrative slowly peels off layers after layers of each character, and soon we realize, there is no black and white, everything is in shades of grey. The relationship between Amanda and Louise, and the way it changes after everything they go through has been picturized realistically. The last twenty percent is extremely action packed, and one is forced to keep reading right upto the end.

I noticed a few typos, but other than that, there is no downside. The book cover is also intriguing, and is catching enough to make a reader pause and take a look.

So overall, one of the best, gripping novels, I rate it 4.5 stars