Thriller Review: The Other People by C.J. Tudor

Even though everyone seems to adore The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor, I liked this one better.

The Other People by C.J. Tudor

Released January 2020

Thriller  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon 

Source: Library Loan

She sleeps, a pale girl in a white room . . .

Three years ago, Gabe saw his daughter taken. In the back of a rusty old car, covered in bumper stickers. He was driving behind the car. He watched her disappear. But no one believes him. Most people believe that his daughter, and wife, are dead. For a while, people believed that Gabe was responsible.

Three years later and Gabe cannot give up hope. Even though he has given up everything else. His home, his job, his old life. He spends his days and nights traveling up and down the motorway, sleeping in his camper van in service stations, searching for the car that took her. Searching for his daughter.

Katie spends a lot of her life in service stations, working as a waitress. She often sees Gabriel, or 'the thin man' as she has nicknamed him. She knows his story. She feels for him, because Katie understands what it's like to lose a loved one. Nine years ago, her father was murdered. It broke her family apart. She hasn't seen her oldest sister since the day of the funeral; the day she did something terrible.

Fran and her daughter, Alice, put in a lot of miles on the motorway. Not searching. But running. Trying to keep one step ahead of the people that want to hurt them. Because Fran knows the truth. She knows what really happened to Gabe's daughter. She knows who is responsible. And she knows that if they ever find them, they're dead.

My 2 Cents For Free!

“We’re all capable of good and bad. Very few of us show our real faces to the world for fear that the world might stare back and scream.”

This is a book that needed my full attention. Due to the world being turned upside down and inside out, my brain is a bit of a mess and thus this review will likely be messier than most because I’m already forgetting so very much.

Basically it’s about a grieving man. He lost his wife and his young daughter in one fell swoop. He cannot move on because he believes he saw his daughter pass by in a car the day she was murdered. He is certain the child was his daughter and he believes she’s been kidnapped and he spends every breathing moment attempting to find her. It’s eating him alive. His searching leads him to the dark web and to say more is to say too much.

This was a well written, twisty-turny thriller with protagonists I didn’t hate. These people were so desperate that the desperation nearly leaped off the pages and stabbed me in the heart. This book gets a lot of points for taking care to create and maintain a strong sense of desperation and emotion and endless pain and regret all the while keeping the stakes high and forcing me to keep guessing at just what the heck was going on. I would’ve never figured this all out even if I’d been able to give it my all.

However, there’s a LOT going on here. At times I felt my brain scream for mercy. I think I tried to read this at the worst possible moment in time and that’s not the fault of the story.

4 out of 5