In 2010, Justin Cronin’s third novel, The Passage, was released into the world. The Stephen King-like apocalyptic sensation became an instant bestseller, describing a catastrophic military-engineered virus created from bats ...

Fast forward to 2023 and Cronin’s new book is set in a dystopian society, an idyllic place, hidden away from a crumbling planet, where humans live long, satisfying lives, until they ‘retire’ and are ferried to an island to be renewed once more. Like anything that sounds too good to be true, the island of Prospera is paradise for some, but not all. Despite the best efforts of the people leading the community, there is still a class system (someone always has to do the dirty work, even in paradise) and the lesser beings are beginning to revolt.

Proctor Bennett is a director who has been responsible for helping those who need to retire, and his job as a ferryman is a highly respected one. When it is time for his own father to go, however, Bennett starts to question the process, and eventually the very fabric of his society. As the Ferryman discovers more about the world in which he lives, the reader also starts to realise that nothing, and I mean nothing, in this book is as it seems. Deception, misdirection, a complex plot, and a whole array of unreliable narrators will keep you guessing right up to the end. Every time I thought I knew where the story was going, I was quickly proven wrong, and that’s what makes this book such a cracking read.

As humankind continues to imagine a world that can no longer sustain us, there are more and more novels being published which explore other possibilities, and Cronin’s is an intriguing, mildly terrifying addition to the genre. We can only hope that, unlike the catastrophic virus in The Passage, Cronin’s latest imaginings do not become reality any time soon.