The Passengers

Have you ever heard of a technological innovation and thought ironically, 'What could possibly go wrong'? Well - here it is!

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Book description

When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course. 

The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife - and parents of two - who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?

My review -

John Marrs is very good at taking a modern scientific or technological breakthrough and then transposing it into a near future. As he did with DNA in The One, he now does with driverless cars. I can’t be the only one who’s thought, ‘Self-driving cars? What could possibly go wrong?!’ but the author takes things a step further. We can all envisage possible failures and breakdowns but it takes a vivid imagination to create this story. Your heart will be in your mouth. It becomes exciting, horrifying, heart-breaking. You must read it.

About the author 

John Marrs is the author of #1 Best Sellers The One, The Good Samaritan, When You Disappeared, Welcome to Wherever You Are and Her Last Move. The One has been translated into 20 different languages and is to be turned into a a ten-part Netflix series in 2019.
After working as a journalist for 25-years interviewing celebrities from the world of television, film and music for national newspapers and magazines, he is now a full-time writer.

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Just a thought 

Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.― Anne Herbert

Her Last Move

John Marrs never fails to tell a good tale. This one's a corker.

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My review -

She is on the police team trying to catch a killer. He has a list of his victims and he’s working through it very quickly so the police won’t have time to work out if there’s a pattern. Some of his victims are, or were, members of the emergency services. We see the story unfold from his side and from the police’s viewpoint. Gradually the two begin to mesh.

As always, John Marrs creates a page-turning story with complex characters. His people are deeper than many a fictional character. We can see how they have become the people they are, and have sympathy for them, even when they behave monstrously. It’s a gripping tale from start to finish and I had a lump in my throat at the end.

About the author -

John Marrs is the author of #1 Best Sellers The One, The Good Samaritan, When You Disappeared, and Welcome to Wherever You Are. 
After working as a journalist for 25-years interviewing celebrities from the world of television, film and music for national newspapers and magazines, he is now a full-time writer.

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Just a thought - It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.  Oscar Wilde

John Marrs

A book which could split opinion because of the motives of the main protagonist. You'd have to judge for yourself but the way the story unfolds is masterful.

The Good Samaritan

Amazon.com link

My review -

Laura is a volunteer at The End Of The Line, a telephone helpline for people who don’t know where to turn next, and feel their lives are a burden. They don’t seek to influence their callers, just to allow them to talk. Laura is popular with her fellow workers, bringing in baking and fundraising for the charity. She is doing a little more than listening to their clients, it appears.

This book is written from more than one view point and allows us to see what is really happening, and what its effects are on the lives of the wider community. Our realisation is gradual and the build-up of tension, and the horror of what’s really going on, is part of the allure of the writing. Nobody, it seems, is what they really appear. Another excellent book from the pen of John Marrs.

John Marrs

John Marrs is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. His stories have an immediacy - they feel real. That's a bit scary in this case!

A Thousand Small Explosions

Amazon.com

My review -

Wouldn’t it take all the hit-and-miss out of finding love if someone had discovered a gene you could match with your partner? Some has discovered that gene and it leads to people in their millions sending a DNA swab to find their perfect Match. Match Your DNA becomes a multi-million pound business. Matched couples get lower insurance – no suicidal depression, no divorce. Non-matched couples feel insecure and many get tested and then split up. It’s thrown the world of dating into chaos. But once everyone does it, it’s going to be brilliant, isn’t it? Isn’t it? This excellent story takes a closer look at several couples and follows their experiences through the Match Your DNA process. The world of instant love is not a path of rose-petals, it seems. You’re guaranteed a Match – how can it possibly go wrong?

I loved the idea and found myself engrossed in the characters and their stories. They were sufficiently well-drawn and different that it was easy to follow from one to another as the chapters moved forward. The sections were fairly short so the page-turner element really kicked in. I hated leaving one story-line but after the first paragraph of the next, I remembered why I hadn’t wanted to leave this one the last time around. This is the third book of the authors that I’ve read and I think he’s getting better. Imagination and technique go hand in hand here and it’s a very compelling book indeed.

I received a review copy of this book from the author.

John Marrs

This is the authors' second book and I've tagged is as thriller but it could be classed in several different  genres. It's complex and intriguing. And it all comes together!

Welcome to Wherever You Are

Amazon .com Welcome to Wherever You Are

My review -

I’ll start by saying I didn’t read this book so much as devour it. There are eight main characters and a number of incidental ones but it’s never confusing and I was very soon drawn into their lives. The only thing they seem to have in common is that, as backpackers and travellers, they have all ended up at the same hostel for a time. The narrative occasionally goes back a year or two to search out each person’s back-story and slowly, as we read on, their reasons for being there unfold.

I enjoyed the way the author made me change my views about some of the characters as I came to know more about them. I had got well into the story and wanted to know what would happen to them all but I couldn’t have imagined the actual outcome. I found myself almost rushing to the end to see how they all fared. It’s a book I’d be hard pressed to classify but I thought it was simply sensational and I thoroughly recommend it.

John Marrs

John Marrs is a new author to me. Here he takes the Nature-Nurture controversy and give us a viewpoint. I've found it's not necessary to like the protagonist to get really involved in a book!

The Wronged Sons

Amazon .com The Wronged Sons

My review - 

Simon walked out of his family home twenty-five years ago, leaving his wife and three small children. His keys, his car, his wallet were all left behind. He just vanished. No sign of their husband and daddy and no body to mourn. It was a total mystery. Then he walked back in. Meanwhile, his wife had rebuilt her life and made herself a good career. The children he abandoned did well in later life. Why did he leave? Generally speaking I find it hard to enjoy a story when I dislike or fail to empathise with the main character. I couldn’t agree with or approve of Simon’s actions but eventually, through the story he tells his ex-wife, who was forced to have him declare dead, we find out the influences on his life which turned him into the man he eventually became.

This is a story which slips back and forth in time and is told from two different points of view. That can be confusing but I didn’t find it so here. Teasingly, the fragments of their history are unfolded and only at the end, as they each give their own point of view, do we see what happened, and how damaged Simon was by his own background. Sometimes, you can’t find an excuse but you can find a reason. Amazingly good tale and I’ll happily read more from this author.