Chelsea Humphrey's Reviews > The Passengers

One of the reasons I'm drawn to everything that John Marrs writes is that he takes the mundane and gives it a soapy spin. I mean this as the highest of compliments, because there's nothing I adore more than a unique idea that's brimming with drama, and I like for my psychological thrillers to contain not only the traditional aspects of crime fiction, but also the secrets hidden by our characters that pertain to their daily lives. I was slightly worried going into this one that the overwhelmingly large cast of characters would cause me to lose focus, but I should have known better than to not implicitly trust that the author knew exactly what he was doing.

If you've read the synopsis, then you know that the basic gist of the story is that manual cars are in the process of being outlawed, and the U.K. is moving forward into an era where only automated vehicles will be legal on the streets. That's right folks-automobiles are no longer controlled in any capacity by the driver. This is a scary, realistic premise, mainly because self-driven vehicles are becoming more popular by the day, and I'm one of those old curmudgeons who is terrified of a world filled with cars not controlled by flesh and blood. Drivers have now become referred to as passengers, and in the first part of the story, we meet a bunch of seemingly unrelated folks who's vehicles have been hijacked by an unknown entity, and they are all on a collision course that will kill each passenger in roughly 2.5 hours. Yikes! We also follow alongside Libby, a woman with her own issues who is on a board which reviews the black boxes of vehicles involved in accidents as per the Vehicle Inquest Jury. She's our eyes and ears outside of the passengers in the vehicles headed for collision.

Another reason why I love Marrs' novels is because he includes varying multimedia inserts, such as case files, newspaper clippings, internet articles, and perhaps the odd email or text message. In The Passengers, most chapters begin with information on how the laws have changed, how the vehicles are structured, and many other newsworthy tidbits. Tie that in with the fact that this is just a dang good story, I had to give it 5 stars. The pacing is quick and there is a growing sense of dread as the book progresses that gave me a difficult time putting the book down to do things like eating, sleeping, and just general adulting. One of the reveals towards the end had a whopper of a twist; all I could think of was how this would be the way Agatha Christie would pull off a reveal in the modern world! If you're looking for a tense thriller that'll cause your fingers to smoke due to the speed you're turning the pages, look no further. Highly recommended, friends!

*Many thanks to the publisher for providing my review copy.