The Other People by C.J. Tudor

Gabe is driving home to his family when he sees his five-year-old daughter, Izzy, peering out of the rear window of an old beat-up station wagon festooned with bumper stickers. She’s supposed to be home with her mother and he gives chase, but the car gets away. He learns soon after that his wife and daughter have been murdered in their home. Gabe insists to the police that they must be wrong because he saw his daughter in a stranger’s car, but they deny that this is possible. Soon he finds himself under suspicion for his family’s murder. Years later, now exonerated, but with the murders still unsolved, Gabe spends his time living out of a camper van and driving along the motorway where he saw the station wagon, hoping to see it again.

Gabe’s story intersects with that of Katie, a waitress in a Service Station, who’s a single mother and takes pity on him. Then there’s Fran, who with her daughter Alice, is on the run. Then there’s the child in a vegetative state in a private residence who dreams, and the Samaritan, a sinister criminal who helps Gabe in his search.

Being a C. J. Tudor novel, this is a story with a strong supernatural element. Alice is afraid to look into mirrors, for when she does she falls unconscious, dreams, and the mirror shatters leaving her with a pebble which she hoards in a satchel. It’s clear from early on that she is somehow linked to the girl in the coma. But The Other People is also a crime thriller, and Gabe discovers a disturbing organisation (The Other People of the title) that organises on the Dark Web.

I won’t say more for risk of divulging spoilers, but as with the author’s previous titles, The Chalk Man and The Taking of Annie Thorne, both of which I’ve also read and reviewed, this book seamlessly blends the supernatural with crime thriller, producing a very compelling tale.

5 out of 5 stars