The Passengers

Certainly a page turner and an easy read. Interesting concepts on near-future issues, but I was left feeling a bit...unchallenged.

The story, sort of, revolves around Libby who is a juror on a panel that decides who is responsible in autonomous car collisions. These inquests have always been closed-doors and utterly opaque, and nearly always lays the fault on the human, so Libby gives us an inside view of what's going on.

There's a “Hacker” who takes control of a number of cars and states that each Passenger will die in two hours time. It's then put to the jurors in the inquest to decide (along with a vote from the public - ala dystopian x-factor) as to which single individual will survive.

Jack Larsson is an MP on the panel of jurors. He's horrid. I got the impression he was a Farage type character, disgustingly sexist, racist, self centred, the works. The author does a great job of keeping Larsson on character - as much as it was hard to read this character.

What I had trouble with was how the Hacker had unprecedented control over not only every single car in the UK, but also what seemed like hundred of cameras inside the inquest. The hacker could turn off the audio from the passengers and somehow also kill their network reception on their phones (okay, maybe...) but why the passengers didn't resort to writing on a bit of paper to communicate...it seemed like (to me at least) an obvious tool to use.

The hijacking story ends around 80% in the book which left me kind of confused as to what was coming next. The last of the book is split in half between 3 months later where Libby is the voice for an activist group and the 2 years later when (another) inquest into Jack Larsson's involvement.

The end felt pretty jarring whilst also trying to clean up all the loose ends and (almost) quickly making sure all the baddies have their comeuppance (though in “reality” the real baddies get away scott free...).

I think it makes a good holiday read, but not so well suited to my desire to read a clever dystopian view on near-future technology.

The Passengers by John Marrs


A very clever set up leads to a fantastic thriller full of twists and turns and unexpected moments.


Set in a future not unlike the present where society has come to rely on autonomous cars to the extent that the government is outlawing the use of non autonomous cars; Libby is participating in a jury considering if an autonomous car is responsible for killing some pedestrians or if it was their own fault when someone hacks into the cars and takes control. What follows is a rollercoaster ride where the jury are forced to decide who lives and who dies. This is all made worse by the inevitable online publicity, and a great feature of this book is online snippets that add to the realistic feel of the novel.


The characters are well drawn and there are some great funny moments particularly with the aging actress trapped in a car who has no idea what's going on. I think the author has made great use of his former experiences of writing articles about celebrities!


Whilst this is a really entertaining read, it does also make you think about reliance on technology and how it can encourage snap judgments based on little more than how a person appears and a mob mentality. The inquest where the jury are deciding is attended by an expert who is more excited by the online stats generated by what's happening than by the thought that someone is about to die.


This month the book is 99p on Kindle and would make a great holiday read.

Voor het grootste deel van de tijd heeft dit boek me geboeid. Ook al zijn de meeste personages enigszins karikaturaal en eendimensionaal, het plot is zo spannend en boeiend dat ik dit gemakkelijk over het hoofd zou kunnen zien.
De onthulling en de laatste paar hoofdstukken sloegen echter nergens op en maakten de ervaring een beetje goedkoper en benadrukten de gebreken die ik eerder kon negeren.

God stop shilling your other book it's obnoxious.

Other than that readable decent thriller. I think it dipped it's hand into topics it didn't know how to handle and what it did handle it did with the grace with nuance of a sledgehammer but it was entertaining enough. Though I think there could be done much more with this premise. The audiobook was pretty well put together. 2.5

The Passengers has a unique plot and is a fast-paced read. The characters are interesting and presented in a way that made me curious to know more about them. There are themes related to Artificial Intelligence and how individuals are judged based on their value to society which are woven into the story. The weakest part for me was the ending which came across as a little contrived and rushed. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a suspenseful thriller that is off the beaten path.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the digital advance review copy.

I give this one a 3.5/5 because while it wasn't necessarily terrible, I wouldn't recommend anyone else to read it.

It tries to sort of explore the morality of self-driving cars (and who should die in case of an accident) but it felt fairly shallow. The main character gives fairly obvious arguments against the “evil” people who want autonomous cars to take over the road. I think at times the dialogue wasn't that great. The cringiest moment for me was when a social media expert walks into a courtroom and says:

“Nobody knows more about mass communication that I do. I know my machine learning from my micromoments; my conversions from my clickbait; my organic reach from my omni-channels and my big data from my business intelligence...” (He keeps going too!)

Like, who talks like that? Maybe it was on purpose to highlight how silly his character is but it just made me cringe, really.

Wow. This is only my second John Marrs book. He really takes your mind for a spin when you read his work. Things started happening on page one and they didn't end until the very last page. This is a fast paced book with a lot of different characters and different things happening. Twist after twist, it was incredibly written and you can tell how much research and effort was put in to this novel. Thank you to John Marrs for writing it. It really is a work of art.

Side note: I do suggest reading “The One” by John Marrs before reading this for no spoilers. If you were to read “The Passengers” first, it may give away a little of what happens in “The One”.