By Lisa Lutz
The Passenger (2016) is my first Lisa Lutz novel that's not part of the Spellman universe. It’s a departure from the witty caper humour that I associate with that well-loved series. It seems that Lutz wanted to jump on the Gone Girl bandwagon and try her hand at a dark psychological crime thriller.
I’m writing this review four years after having read The Passenger so I don’t recall much of the plot, though I do remember the twist, which veered into soap opera territory. Something about Jo’s (the real name of protagonist) mom having a secret affair with Mr. Oliver, the rich, powerful guy in town. Jo grows up ignorant of who her dad was, and of course, ends up falling in love with the wrong boy – Mr. Oliver's son, her half-brother, unbeknownst to the young lovebirds. Some terrible accident happens involving Jo, and Mr. Oliver helps her leave town with a new identity and enough money to start a new life elsewhere.
But before all this got revealed, the novel begins with a dead husband, a fleeing widow and a mystery of who Tanya Dubois is and why keeps running off and changing identities.
The official blurb summary:
48 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?
This review also provides a good summary that helped me recall events.
As one Goodreads reviewer said: “this is a three-star book but I had a four-star time reading it.”
The Passenger was definitely flawed in its execution, but I was immediately drawn into the central character and the fairly gripping narrative. Lutz has always had a way of making her protagonists relatable and likeable, despite their tragic flaws. She's definitely become one of my fave contemporary genre writers.
