THE OTHER PASSENGER by Louise Candlish

The Girl on the Train set on a Thames Riverboat with a male protagonist so equally appealing to all readers.  And just as good. The slightly brain numbing routine of going to work every day on public transport, through the changes of the seasons, the calendar, the job of driving taken care by others, thus releasing the brain to do any infinite number of things - day dream, spy on fellow travellers, have a beverage of some sort, get to know fellow travellers, build relationships and friendships with them until the vessel stops, disgorges everyone, breaking up the surreal world all have been travelling in. So it is for Jamie when he starts getting the river boat with Kit, the partner of Jamie's wife's work colleague Melia.

The story is narrated by Jamie beginning 2 days after Christmas, as he makes his way into London City to his cafe job, expecting  Kit to also be there, but isn't. The police meet Jamie when he disembarks, to be told that Kit has disappeared some 3 or 4 nights previously on the ferry ride home, and it appears Jamie is the last to see him alive. Over the next few days, Jamie's concern increases, as does the concern of Melia and Clare, with no trace of Kit anywhere. The present day is cleverly mixed up with the events of the previous 12 months when Kit and Melia first entered Jamie and Clare's lives.

Kit and Melia are an enchanting and captivating couple, late 20s, no money, living well beyond their means. Both Jamie and Clare, a couple well into their 40s, are drawn to Kit and Melia, an intense friendship developing between all four of them, Jamie and Clare finding themselves drawn into the web of the younger couple. Increasingly as the months pass till Kit's disappearance at Christmas, the lives of the four become more mixed up, more entwined, to the extent that memory and truth also become increasingly mixed up. It is very good, deftly handled, the question always being is what we see really what we are seeing. There are many surprises and twists, and it was only when I read just one word in a sentence that how I thought this was unfolding was not in actual fact how it did unfold.