Book: The Passenger

 Book: The Passenger

Author: John Marrs

Pages: 352

This is my 161st read for the year

In a near distant future, self driving cars are becoming mandatory.  With propoganda that states that it is safer when the car can make a decision and the cost of insurance almost nothing, people are buying into it.  There is one holdout -Libby- who will never believe that this is the right path.  She is chosen to be on a jury to determine in fatal accidents if it was the car at fault or not, and what she is finding is that  the powers above her never find the car at fault.  One day while she is on her jury, a hacker kidnaps 8 different people and locks them in their cars.  They are told they are traveling to an unknown location and in 2 1/2 hours they may be dead.  The hacker then tells the jury that they are going to be the ones to decide who lives and who dies.

This was a pretty interesting book.  Libby was a pretty good character.  Jack - the head of this whole operation was an awful character, but he was supposed to be.  I have decided to read a few Marrs books because I like his dystopian-esque take on things, but I don't love his "keeping the reader in the dark for no reason" writing.  I try to look past it because overall the stories are great reads, but it does bug me.  Each chapter is another person - one of the passengers or Libby.  We learn more about them as they travel along. The ending was okay.  I did like that it went 6 months and then 2 years into the future so we could see what was happening after the hack.  It drug a bit, but he threw in a surprise or two that helped.

Stars: 3.5