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Book Review of The Passenger

The Passenger
Readnmachine avatar reviewed on + 1440 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


Excellent twisty tale of a woman on the run, whose past is even more complicated and dangerous than her future.

Lutz sets up her heroine as an unreliable narrator almost from the get-go, when Tanya Dubois finds her husband dead at the foot of the stairs in their family home and, instead of calling the cops, proceeds to empty his wallet and as much of their bank account as she can access, and hitting the road.

As Tanya travels across the country, changing identities as needed, her backstory unravels with tantalizing hints of dark and dangerous deeds.

Lutz fudges Washington state geography a bit, which I suppose is forgivable in a work of fiction, but is nonetheless a bit disorienting to any reader who knows just how far Moses Lake is from Everett. Less forgivable is a scene that takes place in the front seat of a Lincoln Towncar, which strikes one as physically impossible. (No, it's not a sex act. Let's just say even Jackie Chan couldn't pull it off.)

Minor complaints aside, this is a great sit-up-late-to-finish-it tale.