2001, Leisure Books, NY, 93 pages

In this gripping novella by the man who wrote Joy Ride [made into the Paul Walker movie] we get a look at a fancifully dark side of rural New York. Janet Morris is a public defender trying to help ‘Little’ Arthur Harpe beat his murder charges, by placing the blame on ‘Big’ Micah Harpe, a lifelong violent felon currently in hiding.

Janet’s story unfolds in Adderton County in Northern New York as her car breaks down on a country road. Janet then finds herself a woman alone in a cruel dark world. It is not long before she sees a murder and has to sit and listen to a criminal say, “She’s got fifty-nine.”

Jack Ketchum paints a vivid cast of scumbag characters who must be negotiated like many-tentacled psychological obstacles by Janet Morris, The Passenger, if she is going to live out the night.