The Passenger

Definitely written by a thriller writer. I was excited. I love nautical stories. I'm interested in submarine stories. I love ghosts. I really liked Das Boot the film. So of course I would be intrigued by a haunted submarine.

The ghost was honestly borderline pointless. There are hints that the ghost is the problem with the ship's run of bad luck, but, honestly, everything could have had a reasonable explanation. The occult interests of the SS, though spearheading the plot, really aren't necessary at all to the story itself. Most of the characters are fairly flat, except for Lorenze. He was the only one in whom I was invested at all. The writing is...uneven. Some pages are dry and uninspired, awkward even. And then they'll be passages that are lovely–like, are you the same writer I was reading five pages ago?

In all, I really wanted to like it, and I was a very open audience, but it just wasn't that good. It wasn't creepy, it wasn't original, the action was repetitive, and every character but Lorenz was bland. What a pity.

I really wanted to love this book, The Forbidden and The Sleep Room are both excellent but this isn't as good. The supernatural element didn't work for me it felt like it was shoehorned in amongst the many explosions, faulty equipment and mouldy food. I did love the character of Lorenz, definitely the best thing about the book.