The Passenger by Lisa Lutz

This thriller will have you second guessing yourself at each twist and turn.

What would make a woman who has just found her husband dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs in their house grab cash, flee town and change her identity? Tanya DuBois did just that, and will keep doing it as long as someone is after her. One night she meets a kindred spirit in a bartender named Blue, who seems to understand Tanya's desperate need to keep on the move, inventing new personas each time. Will Tanya's past catch up with her frantic journeys or will she manage to carve a semblance of normality and live a life unpursued? Or will the persistent writer who wants to expose a secret in her past force her to return to a place she longed to forget?

The book started out with great promise-the story draws you in from the beginning as you start to question Tanya and the reasons for her flight. Unfortunately as you keep reading, many holes in the story start to pop up. Some you can overlook but some make you shake your head with a healthy dose of scepticism. A reader can only be pushed so far until the believability factor is stretched beyond breaking point. Some sections of the story were glossed over and some really didn't need to be included-her affair with the chiropractor being one of them. The introduction of the emails between characters you haven't met yet tends to sidetrack you a little as you file the info away for future reference. For someone escaping a deed from her past, Tanya seems to have no issues creating current messes. It begs the question of-do you punish someone for being a vigilante when they have done wrong for the right reasons? I enjoyed the ride throughout the story but the end was "packaged too neatly" for me.

A good writing style, easy to read flow and an entertaining story makes this an engaging read. The wrap up was not a shocking moment-more of an affirmation of what you already suspected. Still, a good afternoon's read with enough questions to leave you turning pages to find out more.

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to review the book.