THE LAST PASSENGER by Will Dean

THE LAST PASSENGER

Will Dean

Hodder & Stoughton (hodder.co.uk)

£16.99

Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop

When Caz Ripley steps onboard the RMS Atlantica with her boyfriend Pete, it’s the start of the holiday of a lifetime. Caz is a homebird, a café owner slowly repaying a debt run up by her father when Caz and her sister were still children. Despite the fact that this week-long cruise from Southampton to New York is only her thirteenth date with Pete Davenport, she already feels that they might have something special; and when she discovers that he has sprung for the Platinum cabin, she starts to think that younger sister Gemma might be right: maybe this is an elaborate setting to pop the question. When a proposed trip to the ship’s casino forces Caz to reveal family secrets sooner than she planned, the pair end up having a quiet evening and an early night. When Caz wakes the following morning, Pete is gone. So, too, she quickly discovers, are all the other passengers. And the crew. RMS Atlantica is travelling full steam ahead across the Atlantic with nobody at the helm, and no-one else, seemingly, onboard, except for Caz Ripley.

Let’s talk quickly about spoilers. Ever since I started reviewing books, even before the advent of Reader Dad, I have tried to avoid spoilers of any kind. Every so often, a book comes along, such as the recently-reviewed The Ferryman, that makes writing a review a very difficult prospect. When two come along in quick succession it makes me wonder if there isn’t a much easier way to spread the book love. Which is to say, for those who haven’t yet had their morning coffee, that Will Dean’s The Last Passenger is just such a book. The description above – which doesn’t reveal much more than the blurb on the dust jacket – is totally accurate. It also only covers the first fifty pages or so of this reasonably hefty tome. So forgive me if I talk about The Last Passenger in the most general of terms. The most important thing you should take away from this review is that, unsurprisingly to anyone who has read any of Dean’s previous novels, The Last Passenger is an absolute must-read.

Since his 2018 debut, Dark Pines (the novel that unleashed the wonderful Tuva Moodyson on an unsuspecting world), Will Dean has become a force to be reckoned with in crime fiction. Every novel is better than the one before it, which is even more impressive when you consider that he has been producing two books a year for the past few years. His standalone novels show a different side of the man behind Tuva’s adventures and for his latest release he has moved away from the “safety” of the psychological thriller. The Last Passenger is a high-concept thriller that takes an ordinary woman and places her in an extraordinary situation, and asks us to suspend our disbelief for long enough to enjoy this twisty, edge-of-the-seat, breathtaking rollercoaster ride. Let me tell you: it’s not a difficult ask. Dean puts us inside Caz Ripley’s head and we’re immediately thrown into the dark with her. Early on, it’s difficult to get a handle on just what The Last Passenger is: is there a supernatural element at play here? Has Will Dean finally crossed over into science fiction, and preparing to break out the anal probes? Or is there a more down-to-earth explanation for how almost one thousand people vanished into thin air? I have to admit, I think I would have been happy with any of those paths, but Dean keeps it real and the result is something you’ll want to return to again and again, looking for clues you might have missed the first time around.

The Last Passenger feels like the type of story that Matthew Reilly excels at. The non-stop tension coupled with short, sharp chapters combine to ensure that once you start, it’s very difficult to stop. In the novel’s early stages, Caz seems to be plagued by a series of unlikely coincidences ( “at least there’s plenty of food” ; the food stores lock down. “The ship still has power”; instant blackout. You get the idea), but when you discover where Dean is taking you, it all becomes clear and any thoughts of “lazy” writing are instantly banished. The Last Passenger covers a vast range of topics, from maritime law to the dark web, addiction, cryptocurrencies, family and <redacted>, all in service to a high-concept thriller with a distinctly human heart.

That heart is, of course, Caroline “Caz” Ripley herself. Like all of Dean’s previous novels, the central character is a strong, if slightly damaged, woman. He writes women extremely well and finds the perfect voice for Caz – a northern café owner struggling to stay afloat while she looks after her younger sister and her kids, and her mother who is succumbing to the slow death of dementia. Caz’s family has a troubled history, and she is trying to repay a debt – a very real debt – racked up by her father before he took his own life many years before. Now in middle age, Caz has finally found happiness. Until, that is, she wakes up to discover everyone has disappeared. If you’re worried about how this very ordinary woman can carry a 300-odd page novel on her own, you won’t be surprised to discover that the author has a few surprises in store. But the connection we have with Caz, through her first-person narrative, goes a very long way towards keeping The Last Passenger afloat.

Anyone who has read Will Dean’s earlier novels will not be surprised, I’m sure, to discover that the latest outing is as brilliant as you’ve come to expect. If you haven’t read him, this isn’t a bad place to start but beware: he is highly addictive. His most experimental novel to date, The Last Passenger is everything you’ve come to expect from the man in the moose forest: dark, pacy, exciting, but grounded in reality and anchored there by the very real character around which it is built. This is a novel that will keep you on your toes – every time you think you have it figured out, Dean takes great delight in pulling the rug from under your feet – and keep you guessing until the very last page. An absolute triumph, not to be missed.