Title: The Other People

Author: C.J. Tudor

Genre: Suspense/Thriller/Mystery

Publisher: Michael Joseph

Publication Date: 23rd January 2020

Rating: 5/5

Cover:

Summary:

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

Driving home one night, stuck behind a rusty old car, Gabe sees a little girl’s face appear in the rear window.

She mouths one word: ‘Daddy.’

It’s his five-year-old daughter, Izzy.

He never sees her again.

Three years later, Gabe spends his days and nights travelling up and down the motorway, searching for the car that took his daughter, refusing to give up hope, even though most people believe that Izzy is dead.

Fran and her daughter, Alice, also put in a lot of miles on the motorway. Not searching. But running. Trying to keep one step ahead of the people who 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 what they will do if they ever catch up with her and Alice . . .

Review:

I’ve been reading so many glowing reviews of The Other People that last week I just had to buy and read it immediately and I’m so glad I did. The story follows Gabe who has lost his wife and daughter in a violent attack on his family. However, he believes his daughter, Izzy, is still out there somewhere because he saw her in a strange car on the very night of the crime that destroys his world. He is now constantly on the road trying to uncover the truth about what happened and the more he finds out the more mysterious and dangerous things become.

I was immediately invested in this story and wanted to know how the characters were connected more and more with every chapter. The situation we find Gabe in is seemingly hopeless and honestly depressing. He desperately travels up and down the motorways at all hours of the day and night stuck in a desperate cycle and refusing to let his daughter go. His nighttime travels in particular conjure up an incredibly eerie atmosphere which is so effective. I think atmosphere is perhaps the most important aspect of books in this genre and The Other People has it in spades. I felt the tension and mystery all the way through and the story gave me chills on numerous occasions. There is an ominous quality to the writing that meant I was totally unsure of where things were going next and kept me reading well into the night!

I don’t want to give too much away about the plot but I will say I just loved the whole idea of ‘The Other People’ because it feels like the sort of thing that could be real, just simmering behind the lives of normal people. The separate strands of the story slowly weave together as the pace gets more intense whilst still retaining the insidious strangeness and mystery of the events taking place. The Other People is in many ways an examination of what grief and loss can do to a person and how we are perhaps all capable of a darkness we are unaware of until circumstances put us in a desperate situation. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I will definitely be reading whatever C.J. Tudor comes up with next.

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