I love it when an author sets up a character as someone not to be trusted and unreliable, while somehow making them sympathetic too, because of their self-awareness. That's what Louise Candlish does in The Other Passenger.
Jamie and Clare are a forty-something couple living together in London. Living well, too, thanks to Clare's family money. Clare is a real-estate agent, and Jamie makes minimum wage as a coffee shop employee. They make friends with a younger couple, Kit and Melia, who "bring the winning combo that Clare fears she is losing: youth, fun, and freedom". They also bring drama as it soon becomes clear that they are struggling financially, and Kit has some serious drug problems.
Jamie and Kit share a commute in the morning aboard a catamaran on the Thames and become drinking buddies. This turns out to be a problem for Jamie when he is the last person to see Kit before he goes missing, and a fight between the two is witnessed. Jamie is questioned but can't be charged with anything as there is no body.
Thus begins the complicated work of piecing together Kit's mysterious disappearance and Jamie trying to prove his innocence. The waters are muddled further when affairs and deceptions are revealed. Clare's proclamation several months into their friendship with Kit and Melia that "there's something not right about those two" proves to be prophetic.
Throughout the novel, Jamie compares millennials to Gen X, grumpily thinking that they are narcissistic, they've lost the art of conversation and that they believe they deserve things they haven't earned. The irony is rich in light of what readers learn about Jamie. Jamie's reliance on Clare's wealth for a decade leads him to develop an alluring theory: owning nothing is equivalent to having nothing to lose. This is a key theme for the characters of this book as some prove themselves happy to sell others down the river.
Towards the end of the story Jamie has the thought that the two most heart-breaking words in the English language are "what if". This idea is illustrated brilliantly through Candlish's gasp-inducing plot twists and Jamie's introspection. The Other Passenger is an intelligent, absorbing thriller with complex character development and a gratifying ending. I give this novel five stars out of five.
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