Driven
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 8 Sept 2026
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- 10,99 €
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- Pre-Order
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- 10,99 €
Publisher Description
A terrifying locked-room mystery from the author of Exiles and William—this time set in a cutting-edge autonomous car.
Jamie Newcross wants to disappear. His wife and baby girl have abandoned him, and his only wish is to retreat from society. Because, as it turns out, Jamie Newcross is also being haunted. Every house, condo, or apartment he moves into is plagued with ghosts—at the end of the bed or when pulling back the shower curtain. He hasn’t been able to sleep in weeks.
But Jamie has a plan. He posts queries online and finds someone wanting to get rid of their Lion—the world’s most advanced self-driving car—a sleek, private, contained vessel that is one-hundred percent safe. Or so he thought.
Because now, Jamie has woken up to the Lion speeding down a dark road, the hood is dented—wait, is that blood?—and the car will not respond, or stop, or let him out.
As the miles rack up and Jamie becomes increasingly complicit in his car’s choices, he's forced to face the tragic past he has kept buried. Driven is a taut, near-future fever-dream. Mason Coile delivers another one-sitting read that blends science fiction and psychological horror to explore loneliness, grief, and the things that make us human.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Coile (Exiles), in this clever sci-fi thriller, grounds the genre trope of a killer car in an empathetic portrayal of a man at the end of his rope. Jamie Newcross, whose wife recently left him, has moved multiple times in just over a year, attempting to escape a dark spirit that has been haunting him. His latest residence is a shabby basement apartment, but, on his first attempt to use the shower, a voice comes from behind its curtain that sounds like "somebody trying to speak through a throatful of rotted meat," causing him to flee in terror. When he's offered a too-good-to-refuse deal on an ultra-advanced self-driving car, the Lion 100, he thinks he's finally found a way to outrun the haunting. Plus, unlike other autonomous automobiles, the Lion promises not to sell user data. But after falling asleep in the car, Jamie awakes to find its windshield smeared with blood, human hair, and pieces of skull. Worse, the car has stopped responding to his commands and won't let him escape. The revelation that the car has gone rogue and the bloody repercussions of its actions alternate with painful flashbacks to a past Jamie would rather leave buried. Coile makes a meal of this hair-raising premise while crafting a nuanced portrait of his flawed and deeply human lead. It's a true page-turner.
