Have you ever wanted to run away and become someone else? When we meet Tanya Dubois at the beginning of The Passenger, she has just discovered her husband lying dead at the bottom of the stairs. While he appears to have fallen, Tanya knows that the police will still take a good hard look at her before deciding whether it was an accident, and she can't have that since her current identity won't stand up to close police scrutiny. So Tanya writes a note declaring her innocence, packs a bag, and stops at the nearest ATM to withdraw as much cash as possible on her way out of town.
As she drives away from her life as Tanya Dubois, she ponders who will she become now. What will her new name and story be? When she stops to take a break from driving, she encounters a bartender who seems to be living the same type of mysterious existence as Tanya. They form a tentative partnership and eventually swap identities and move on to lead separate lives with new personas. Tanya morphs through several additional identities as she makes her way across the country, until she meets the one person who makes her reconsider her lifestyle.
While darker and more mysterious than Lutz's Spellman series, The Passenger is just as engaging and readable. Lutz's fans will enjoy this departure from her usual type of writing and mystery/thriller readers will enjoy it on its own merits.