Format: E-Galley, 302 pages
Release Date: March 1, 2016
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Source: Publisher
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
From the author of the New York Times bestselling Spellman Files series, Lisa Lutz’s latest blistering thriller is about a woman who creates and sheds new identities as she crisscrosses the country to escape her past: you’ll want to buckle up for the ride!
In case you were wondering, I didn’t do it. I didn’t have anything to do with Frank’s death. I don’t have an alibi, so you’ll have to take my word for it...
Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone, and flees town. It’s not the first time.
She meets Blue, a female bartender who recognizes the hunted look in a fugitive’s eyes and offers her a place to stay. With dwindling choices, Tanya-now-Amelia accepts. An uneasy―and dangerous―alliance is born.
It’s almost impossible to live off the grid today, but Amelia-now-Debra and Blue have the courage, the ingenuity, and the desperation, to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret…can she outrun her past?
With heart-stopping escapes and devious deceptions, The Passenger is an amazing psychological thriller about defining yourself while you pursue your path to survival. One thing is certain: the ride will leave you breathless
"Tell the truth whenever possible, the lies will add up and you'll never keep track."
The Passenger, by
Lisa Lutz, is a standalone novel that features a twenty something woman named Tanya Dubois. It is a story filled with twists and turns and surprises that happen after she chooses to disappear
after finding her husband of 7 years dead. Instead of immediately contacting the authorities and telling the truth, Tanya chooses to run away and leave her life behind her. She soon becomes a person of interest, and continually claims that she had nothing to do with her husbands death. You will have
to take her claim with a grain of salt because she has done some truly backhanded things while married.
Tanya begins a journey that will take her cross country and make a final journey to the home she was forced to leave Ten years ago. She changes her name a half dozen times, steals money and identities from innocent people, and yes, even kills when it becomes necessary. She later meets a bartender named Blue who sees through her facade and has her own crosses and secrets to bear.
Who is Tanya Dubois really, and why did she choose to run rather than take her chances with the Police? Is she running from a past that still haunts her to this day? Is she running from a past lover, or her family? Is she running because there may or may not be hired killers out to find her? And, who is the mysterious woman named Blue who takes a shining to Tanya and seems to be unusually interested in helping her blend into society and sees through her attempt at being someone else?
One of the things I caught onto quickly, was that Tanya was never her real name. Tanya is just someone she became, and then spent ten years solidifying her identity. I truly thought the story was worth reading, and entertaining book, but the narrator perhaps wasn't necessarily trustworthy because of the things she does along the way. There are a whole lot of holes to fill in "Tanya's" back story, as well as her ability to murder someone so that she doesn't risk being discovered and outed by whomever she is hiding from.
The story is also told in a twisted way through email conversations between two people named Jo and Ryan. No, I can't nor won't spoil who Ryan is except to say you must read this book to the very end to have all your answers. The Passenger is an entirely new ball of wax from what I am used to by author Lisa Lutz. Her previous series, The Spellman's, was about a family of private investigators that is as funny and strange as they come. The Passenger is much darker by far novel in that Tanya's makes plenty of bad choices, decisions, and perhaps trusts the wrong people too easily.
I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did - I finished it in one (long) sitting. There are enough summaries of the plot, so I'll just say the book is a compelling good read. Lutz does a great job of using language to illustrate the inner turmoil of the character, from simple stilted language in the beginning to a more fluid one as time goes on. This is not the kind of complex Jane Whitefield escapes Thomas Perry describes. This is seat of your pants, get up and disappear story.
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