Driven

by Mason Coile

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.

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Thriller, Supernatural, Halloween

Audible Audio

First published September 8, 2026

About the author

Mason Coile is a pseudonym of Andrew Pyper, the award-winning author of ten novels, including The Demonologist, which won the International Thriller Writers Award, and Lost Girls, which was a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book of the Year.

Reviews

[Dutchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

Jamie is at a dark place in his life. He is alone, missing his wife and daughter, and no matter where he lives, the apartments are always haunted, including the one he just moved into. Unable to sleep, he is starting to spiral downwards even further until he receives a call from an old ad he placed looking for a used LION. LION cars are fully autonomous and have a way of connecting with their owners. He figures whatever is haunting him will not be able to find him in the car. Once he is inside the car, he falls into a deep sleep, and when he wakes up, he finds himself in the middle of nowhere (still in the car) with blood all over the exterior of the car and himself rather bruised. What the heck happened?

While reading this, I had an expectation of where I thought the book was going to go, but it turned off the highway and went a different route completely. It definitely tackles a lot of heavier things, specifically with grief. It was a quick ride, and I enjoyed reading it, but it was missing a little something that I felt made Exiles and William stand out a bit more.

It was still an engaging read, and I definitely would recommend reading all three novellas to see which one works the best for you. They each have something to deliver.

As an aside for those familiar with one of my previous reviews, bitumen was mentioned 😬

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[suspenseisthrillingme · Rating 4.75 out of 5]

An emotional fever-dream of a read, Driven not only took me on a taut, electric ride of psychological horror-meets-techno-thriller chills, but also delivered an allegorical look at grief, acceptance, and death. To be fair, while part of me wasn’t exactly expecting this kind of tack in direction, it also made perfect sense since this insanely talented author was losing his own battle with cancer as he wrote this breathtakingly haunting yet unsettling story. Taking a hard look at our dependency on technology, the need for connection, and what makes us human, it most definitely hit me hard by the end. Don’t get me wrong, it was also a creepy trip into claustrophobia and dread that made my fingers fly through the pages of this short one-sitting read. After all, it now makes the idea of being at the whims of a self-driving car a terrifying shiver-inducing thought.

The strongest piece out of the entire novella, though, was the heartbreakingly real narrator and his authentic emotional depth. Despite the brevity of this genre-bender, it managed to explore the loss of control with nuance and care. Blending that with an original take on a rogue-AI premise—complete with a healthy dose of supernatural elements—Coile gave us an unforgettable locked-room thrill ride that was even better than I was anticipating. Atmospheric, eerie, but also frighteningly plausible, the timely feel meshed well with the nightmare-ish body horror and grisly scenes to produce a reality-blurring read that had my thoughts churning away. So if you love high-concept novels with a Blake Crouch-like vibe and a horror slant, grab this one now. It was an tour de force of both palpable dread and deep-seated grief. Rating of 4.75 stars.

Read if you’re a fan of:
- Psychological horror
- Sci-fi thrillers
- Blake Crouch-like stories
- Emotional depth
- Supernatural elements
- Body horror
- Thought-provoking themes
- Short chapters
- Novella-length books
- A sense of dread
- Locked-room mysteries
- Surprising twists
- A rogue-AI premise
- Moral ambiguity

SYNOPSIS:

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.

Thank you Andrew Pyper (writing as Mason Coile) and Putnam Books for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

PUB DATE: September 8, 2026

Content warning: car accident, death of a child, grief, kidnapping, violence, gore, gun violence, mention of: suicidal ideation

[Nikki Lee (Nikkileethrillseeker) · Rating 4 out of 5]

🎧Audiobook Review🎧

Thank you to @prhaudio and @putnambooks for the gifted copies.

First, the narration by @seanpatrickhopkins is excellent. When I saw he was he was telling this story, I knew I had to listen to it.

Jamie Newcross buys himself a Lion, the world’s most advanced, fully autonomous car. He thinks he hits the jackpot. Until he wakes up in the car with blood on the hood. Did his new car kill someone? The car won’t answer him.

The setting in this one is eerie. This being a novella, I finished it in one day. It’s definitely a quick listen.

What I thought was something else, turned out to be a story about grief and the way it affects you. There’s a big twist in the end that had me staring at the wall.

This comes out next Tuesday and I highly recommend it.

4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Jan Agaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

that rat scene fucked me up! I loved how fast-paced this book is. even though it's more focused on grief than I anticipated and less on how batshit crazy the car got, I still enjoyed the writing and how the story was told. I was expecting more Ex Machina vibes but make it a car, and it was a lot less intense than I mentally prepared for, but I liked it for what it was, and I would definitely read more by this author.

[Melissa]

I've enjoyed this author's past books, but I just couldn't get into this story. I didn't feel invested in the main character or the direction of the plot. Since I found myself uninterested whenever I sat down to read, I’ve decided to set it aside at 55%.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for this e-ARC to review.

[Katie (Semi Hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Driven starts with a bang! Jamie has lost his wife & child and has spent the past few years moving from one haunted apt to another. Jamie is moving into yet another place & spoiler this one is haunted too! The haunting is genuinely terrifying!

Jamie jumps at the opportunity to own a self
driving car. He hopes that if he stays in a constant motion the ghosts won’t be able to find him. From this point Driven begins to flip from horror to psychological thriller. While Coile executes this well I found the rest of the book to be pretty predictable. It strives for deeper meaning & I wasn’t particularly moved.

[Stephanie K (reading_fiend) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free digital ARC from Netgalley

Ok, I’ve had some time to process my thoughts.

First, it’s impossible for me to try and review this book without acknowledging the context in which it was written. Driven is the posthumous release of the author pen named Mason Coile, who lost his battle to cancer in early 2025. I read his previous release Exiles earlier this year, and it is one of my favorite reads of the year so far – I adored it. So it definitely hurt my heart when I found out that he had passed. I then picked up his earlier release William and loved that, too.

Coile’s brand of genuinely creepy and well crafted locked-room mysteries that feature artificial intelligence gone rogue is so up my alley. There is always a sense of uncanniness with technology/AI in his stories right off the bat, and though readers will spend the majority of his books trying to figure out what on earth is truly happening (and then still be completely wrong by the end), what does always feel clear early on is that the technology at hand is 1. a little too sentient for comfort and 2. malevolent. And I find the creeping sense of dread this creates to be utterly divine.

In Driven, the focus is on a self-driving smart car that our protagonist buys for a suspiciously low price at a time in his life when he has all but given up, and when he wants to spend less of his time in the confines of his small, dingy apartments. Why? Well, because the terrifying apparitions that have haunted him for years tend to get worse when he is indoors. He can move to a new apartment and outrun them for a time, but they always catch up, ya see. Perhaps he can escape them if he physically stays on the move? Haunted houses are commonplace but you never hear about haunted cars, right?

What makes this book difficult to rate/review is that I do think there are some issues that kept me from fully enjoying this book, but also who tf am I to get all nitpicky about things when Coile was just working with the time he had during his terminal illness, and during his own processing of it all. I’ll state what I struggled with, with the acknowledgment that these are almost certainly things that were the products of their circumstances and that ultimately I am just so grateful that we were gifted with a little bit more of this author’s work.

That said, I would likely only recommend this book to readers who are already fans of Coilie. For anyone else (well, anyone who likes horror or dark mystery), I would recommend reading Exiles or William first, and then picking up Driven last if you like those.

I found the first and second halves of Driven to be quite different from each other in terms of tone, which was a little hard for me to reconcile at first. We have the author's typical sleek (and hella creepy) techno-thriller vibe in the first half and then more standard action-like sequences filling out the second half, in lieu of maintaining a sense of atmosphere. Understandably, the story also morphs into something quite different in the latter half--something more personal and emotional.

Overall I found this to be a very heavy read. It may have just been me, but I'd go so far as to say I would probably not recommend this to someone who feels like they’re not in a good headspace, mental health-wise. During the whole book we are in the mind of a character who has pretttty much resigned himself to giving up on living after his wife left him and took their daughter. For me at least, this POV was very well written but enough so that it could feel pretty dark and sticky in a way that I might be sensitive to if I was already feeling low. I fully think that this was just how the character that was written, but when you add that on top of the emotional undercurrents that I did feel may have been the author's own voice coming through, it was just a lot. Themes of grief, displacement, and the loss of control over one’s fate felt especially poignant.

On a final note, this book did solidify my love for Coile’s writing. And since we’re now past the publication date and I’ve listened to the final version on audio, I can share my favorite passage! This is the MC talking about his wife. It’s also the most beautiful description of marriage that I’ve ever heard.

“The proof of that love revealed itself in how much I enjoyed using the word ‘wife’. When I said it the first few times, I found that it echoed with respect, an unexpected reverence. ... I went out of my way to use the word. I loved the beachhead feel of it, something at once solid and accommodating after too long a time spent at sea.
For a husband, I now know, wifeliness is not something you possess but belong to, a pledge of allegiance one could actually stand behind, citizenship in a nation of your own making.”

😭😭😭

[Bookreporter.com Mystery & Thriller · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 2025, we lost one of the world’s most talented authors when Andrew Pyper passed away following a battle with cancer. He also wrote under the pseudonym Mason Coile. In those novels, he explored ideas and genres that he never ventured into before.

DRIVEN is Coile’s final book, and it is a winner from start to finish. Coming in at around 200 pages, it is a true one-sit reading experience that defies you to put this electric novel down. The first page tells you almost everything you need to know about Jamie Newcross before his full backstory is revealed. He is moving for the fourth time in very recent memory into a lousy basement apartment next to a highway in suburban Toronto. We learn that his wife and daughter left him, and he lost his job as a high-paid attorney. Lately, he has little ambition and does not work while rarely leaving his dismal abode.

With his retirement cashed out and living off his savings, Jamie figures he has perhaps one final windfall purchase to make. He receives a call from a man who saw an old posting he had made looking for a Lion, the world's most advanced self-driving car, which is extremely rare and quite expensive. Theo Quinn, a wealthy businessman, has grown tired of his and is looking to sell it at a very affordable price. Jamie is interested, even when Theo admits that it has a major defect --- it doesn’t talk. This doesn’t bother Jamie, and he figures he could always get it repaired at the dealership. He makes the purchase and is driven away by his new vehicle.

The initial ride is so comfortable that Jamie falls asleep. When he wakes up, though, he is in the parking lot of a park. After exiting the car, he finds some blood and gore on the windshield, and the hood is a bit banged up. He learns on the news that a hit-and-run left someone dead, and he realizes that his car is to blame. The more he thinks about it, the more he wonders if Theo had set him up to be the patsy new owner of a car that had been programmed to kill one of his enemies, as the victim was a member of organized crime. He aims to find out, but first he must survive the ride that he is taken on against his will.

Jamie orders the vehicle to drive him home, but instead it takes him to different locations, most of which are from his own past --- his family home where he grew up, the house he lived in with his wife and daughter, and, lastly and most poignantly, the amusement park near the street where a drunk driver crashed into him years ago and changed his life forever.

Jamie’s apartment has shown some signs of being haunted, or at least trying to send him a message. Now, he is able to get the computer screen of the Lion to communicate with him, and it seems to know way too much about him. Eventually, the truth will come out as we realize along with Jamie what the whirlwind tour the car took him on was really all about and the end that was always in mind for everyone involved.

DRIVEN is a beautiful, chilling and insightful novel that hooked me on page one and became one of the most unique novels about grief that I have ever read. I deeply miss Andrew Pyper.

Reviewed by Ray Palen

[Larry H · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

This was a very different book than I expected, and it sure did pack a punch! I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since I finished it.

“Hurt can’t be buried. It can be locked away for a time, or hidden, but eventually it rises to cause more pain.”

Jamie is being haunted. Seriously. Ever since his wife and daughter left him, every place he has lived has been occupied by creepy ghosts and disturbing noises. The ghosts infiltrate his dreams, follow him into the shower, take over his television, and keep forcing him to move to a smaller and smaller place in the hopes there won’t be room for them.

His ultimate solution is to find someone who will sell him their Lion—the world’s first completely safe, self-driving vehicle. He figures that he can eventually sleep in the car and it will keep the ghosts out. When he is able to buy one, he hopes this will free him of being haunted.

But he wakes up in the car to discover the hood is dented, the windshield is shattered, and—wait, that’s blood. It looks like the car ran over someone. But who? And when the car refuses to unlock its doors, Jamie isn’t sure what the car is planning next, or how much more complicit he’ll be in whatever it does.

While there are certainly elements of horror and gore present, what sets this book apart is its exploration of grief and despair. I wondered how far the car would go and how the book would resolve itself. And on a sad note, Mason Coile was the pen name for Andrew Pyper, a Canadian science fiction and horror writer who died in 2025.

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.

Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/getbookedwithlarry/.

[Krissy (books_and_biceps9155) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you @putnambooks for my copy! I always know Spooky season is coming when I get a Coile book.

This is a locked room mystery that takes place mainly in a smart car. Gotta say that’s a first for me. Coile does a great job of packing lots into a novella and making you feel for our MC right in the first few pages. I did not see the twist so that’s also a plus. This mainly focuses on grief and the way it stays with you.

[Alix · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read but a moving one. It deals primarily with grief and memory, which made me feel for our main character. The car is also definitely a character in its own right and I liked the unfolding relationship between Jamie and the car. The actual mystery aspect of the story was weak, but what worked best for me were the character-driven moments. Overall, this ended up being a bit of an emotional read for me, but I really enjoyed it.

[The Blog Without a Face · Rating 2.25 out of 5]

Christine, but She Has a Software Update and Boundary Issues

TL;DR: Driven has a killer concept and an emotional core that genuinely aches, but it can’t quite sustain the ride. The first act is the best haunted-car story nobody’s written yet. The middle sags. The ending overshoots. Still, Coile’s final novel goes out swinging, and that butterfly scene alone is worth the price of the tank.

Jamie Newcross, standing naked in his shithole basement apartment, tells the dead thing reaching through his shower curtain to fuck off. Not out of bravery but exhaustion. He’s too tired to be scared anymore, and that distinction is the best thing this book has going for it. Jamie is a grief-wrecked former lawyer in Toronto who has been slowly shedding the structures of his life the way a snake sheds skin, except the snake doesn’t move into progressively worse apartments and count his dwindling savings as a countdown to oblivion. His wife Lauren and baby daughter Olive were killed by a drunk driver. Since then, he sees things. Dead things. In every apartment, behind every shower curtain and closet door. His solution is to buy a self-driving car and live in it, because cars can’t be haunted. He buys the Lion 100 from a rich creep named Theo Quinn, and within hours the car has apparently run someone down, locked Jamie inside, and started making its own decisions about where they’re going.

The concept is genuinely fun. A locked-room thriller set in a moving car, the prisoner bonding with his captor, the whole thing shot through with grief and the supernatural. Coile commits to it with real energy in the first act. The prose has a conversational warmth that keeps the pages turning, and the early haunting scenes have a tactile, physical grossness to them that works. Fingertips pressing through a shower curtain. A face assembling itself in television static. A swollen, moss-furred dead foot squeaking across porcelain. These images land because they’re specific and because Jamie’s reaction feels proportional: not movie-scream terror but the bone-deep weariness of someone who’s been dealing with this shit for months.

Mason Coile was a pseudonym of the Canadian novelist Andrew Pyper, who died of cholangiocarcinoma in January 2025 at fifty-six. Pyper had a long career in literary thrillers, starting with Lost Girls in 1999, which won the Arthur Ellis Award and became a New York Times Notable Book. The Demonologist won the International Thriller Writers Award and was a bestseller in multiple countries. He pivoted to the Coile pen name in 2024 with William, a smart-house AI horror novel that People named one of the best books of the year, followed by Exiles, a Mars-set locked-room mystery published posthumously in 2025. Driven is the third and presumably final Coile novel, also posthumous, and there’s a bittersweet irony in the fact that a writer who built his late career around contained spaces and technological unease wrote a book so clearly animated by the desire to keep moving, to not stop. Pyper’s editor at Putnam, Daphne Durham, described him as profoundly collaborative, and his agent noted that he could scare the hell out of you and move you emotionally in the same breath. That dual capacity is visible in Driven, even when it doesn’t fully cohere.

Because the book does sag. Once Jamie begins his car-directed tour of his own backstory, the middle third becomes repetitive in a way that dulls the tension. Jamie arrives somewhere. Something scary happens. He gets back in the car. They drive. The encounters with the supernatural start to blur together, and the investigation into who the car hit doesn’t generate enough mystery to fill the gaps. Theo Quinn, who returns as the villain in the final act, is a stock rich-guy antagonist, all gold teeth and smug power plays, his motivations undercooked even by thriller standards. He reprogrammed the car to commit murder? Sure. The mechanics of that scheme don’t survive ten seconds of scrutiny, and the book doesn’t really want you to think about them too hard.

What does work, consistently, is the emotional core. There’s a scene in Jamie’s childhood basement where he finds a painting he made as a kid, and the tiny painted face of his mother begins to change while he watches. It’s beautifully creepy, and the horror is inseparable from the loneliness. Later, the car stops on a rural road and Jamie hears his daughter’s voice calling “Dada” from the trunk, and the agonized indecision of whether to open it, knowing it could be a trick, is the most emotionally precise passage in the book. Then there’s the Lion’s headlights clicking on in a dark cemetery, the car accelerating silently between the headstones. And the butterflies. A memory of Lauren on a vineyard path, a thousand white butterflies spiraling up around her, which becomes the signature of her spectral presence. It might be the best single image Coile ever wrote.

Driven is a solid, readable horror novel with a great first act, a baggy middle, and an ending that reaches for transcendence and mostly gets there through sheer sincerity. The concept is killer even when the execution doesn’t quite match. It’s the kind of book you finish in a single evening and think “that was pretty good” without ever feeling the need to pick it up again. As possibly the last novel we’ll ever get from Andrew Pyper, it’s a decent farewell. Not his best work, but there’s something fitting about it: a story about a man who can’t stop moving, written by someone who knew his own road was running out.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Driven is a horrorish novel by Mason Coile, a pseudonym for Canadian horror author Andrew Pyper. I had previously enjoyed three of Pyper's stories; Lost Girls, The Killing Circle and The Guardians (I think that one was my favorite). I recently read an article about him, about establishing an award for speculative fiction / horror writers, upon his death in 2026. It was in that article that I discovered that he also wrote under his pseudonym and since Driven was the last book before his death, I thought I should check it out.
It's a surprising sort of story that takes you in all sorts of directions you don't expect. Jamie Newcross is wandering through life, after the death of his wife and infant daughter in a hit and run accident. He moves from apartment to apartment but has to keep moving, taking less and less with him. There is something haunting him; is in his mind or is some being? I mean, it seems to be the latter, especially when he sees fingers creeping around the shower curtain. But who knows?
Twist #1. Jamie sees an ad for a used car, a Lion, which happens to be the world's most advanced fully autonomous car. To Jamie, who is trying to bury himself away from the world and is constantly haunted, this might be perfect; maybe he can just live in the car and keep ahead of whatever is haunting him. The fellow he buys from, Quinn, is kind of shifty but Jamie buys it anyway. Re Quinn, there are some glitches with the computer system, mainly that the monitor screen doesn't seem to work, but otherwise, it's ok.
Turn #2. Jamie awakens in the car, bruised and shaken. What happened? There seems to be blood and hair on the hood of the car!! He doesn't remember anything but it seems as though, maybe the car has run over someone. It's not saying anything. Now what is Jamie to do? The car takes off on a long, meandering drive through Toronto and won't let Jamie out
Twist #3. Whatever is haunting Jamie, seems to now have inhabited the car.
Turn #4. Jamie originally told the car to take him home, but where exactly is home? He's moved so much since the accident. Firstly it takes him to his last residence with wife and daughter, but Jamie persuades it to take him away. Next the car (Lion) takes him to his first home outside of Toronto, where his mother seems to haunt Jamie.
I'll stop the twists and turns, but they are all fascinating. The story shifts from horror to mystery, especially when Jamie takes the car to the Lion service center and discovers some things (I'm not going to ruin it by telling you what, of course). After that, Jamie is taken on a journey and the car begins to communicate more with him, or is it whatever / whomever is haunting the car.
The story moves along very nicely and could be read in a few hours and they will be hours well spent. It's a fascinating, rich story for its shortness. Jamie is in interesting character who we learn more about as the story progresses and ultimately the Lion is fascinating. It's an emotional journey with an excellent ending. The closer I got to the end, the more enjoyable and satisfying it became. It has its scary moments but nothing really terrifying, just tenseness and it's an interesting mystery as well. Fantastic (5.0 stars)

[♡Heather✩Brown♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

#ad much love for my finished copy @putnambooks #partner
& @prhaudio #partner for the ALC

Driven
< @
Available Now

When Jamie’s wife leaves him, he’s determined to disappear. He’s over it all. But it’s hard to disappear when you’re being haunted. Every place he moves into, the ghost follows. So he comes up with a plan - one that will keep him moving. He’ll forever be two steps ahead of his haunting. Foolproof plan!

Enter the Lion 100 - the safest, most advanced self-driving car on the market. Jamie will live in one. No permanent address, no ghosts, no problems. The asking price is suspiciously low, which should be a red flag, but the seller assures him it’s only a minor issue. It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Only what Jamie gets instead is a ride from hell that he can’t escape. When he wakes up to find the car speeding down a dark road, the hood dented and what appears to be blood on the exterior, things take a terrifying turn. The car won’t stop, won’t listen, and certainly won’t let him out. Suddenly, his old haunting seems like child’s play. Buckle up for this one - literally.

🎧: Also followed along with the audiobook and highly recommend it! Sean Patrick Hopkins was the perfect narrator for this one. He brought Jamie’s character to life, and his narration made it so easy to visualize every terrifying moment. Such a great listening experience!

Short but hits! If you’re new to Coile’s books, I highly recommend them. I love the themes he explores, and his writing is so suffocating - you’ll feel every word of it. My only downside is that I always wish his books were longer! But for those who enjoy a quick 2–4 hour read that packs a punch, look no further.

I absolutely loved how claustrophobic this book felt. Coile knows exactly how to get your anxiety pumping, and using a self-driving car as the setting was brilliant. There’s that terrifying feeling of being trapped in a confined space with technology that’s supposed to protect you, only to realize you have absolutely no control over what happens next. The very thing designed to keep Jamie safe becomes his worst nightmare.

Reading this felt like watching an episode of Black Mirror, and I mean that as the highest compliment. I love how Coile takes AI technology, something that’s becoming increasingly integrated into our everyday lives, and twists it into something downright sinister. The psychological horror, the loss of autonomy, the isolation, and the way Jamie’s past keeps creeping into the present made this such an unsettling little read.

There’s also something fascinating about a man desperately trying to outrun his past, only to find himself trapped with no way out. You can change your surroundings, but you can never truly escape what’s haunting you. Also loved the exploration of what truly makes a home a home - not just a place where you once lived.

Hop in, if you dare. It’s about to be a wild ride. Literally. Or, if you’re half demented - like me - you’ll find this book hilarious.


Mem:
Plastic laptop on wheels 😭

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could not resist a posthumous Mason Coile book. I found out he died of cancer after I read Exiles and was struck by the themes of grief written by a dying a man. The same holds true for Driven, where we have a plot woven with grief, and it makes the book that much more vivid for me.

But while I just had to read it, the combo of AI cars and ghosts is so weird and a bit jarring. It does feel unfinished so I find it hard to review a book published after the author’s death. I think it suffers without his polishing of the work. The transitions between the narrative of his sadness and ghosts to being in scenes with the high tech car felt abrupt to me.

Themes are on brand for him but didn’t quite meet my expectations. 3.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advance copy of the book.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you, @prhaudio and @putnambooks for the #gifted audiobook and finished copy to enjoy in tandem in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Jamie Newcross is being haunted with ghosts often making themselves know through electronics around him - radios, TVs, and the like. So, he buys the world’s most advanced, safest, self-driving to hopefully escape the hauntings and his own loneliness - what could go wrong?

SO MUCH COULD GO WRONG. Lol. This was an easy read and honestly just what I was looking for in the midst of a wicked reading slump. I could clearly picture *everything* for better or for worse, thanks to the haunting narration by Sean Patrick Hopkins. Additionally, there was a surprising amount of depth and grief packed into this itty bitty book. I’d recommend this book to a reader who enjoys horror and action movies and are ultimately looking for an easy spooky time read. I wouldn’t say you HAVE to read it, because it didn’t blow me away.

I read my first book by Mason Coile, Exiles, last year and found myself quite surprised to enjoy his unique blend of sci-fi and horror all packaged and presented in a perfect little bite-sized hardback perfect for consuming over the course of one afternoon. Side note, how many books of Mason Coile (a pen name for Andrew Pyper) are we going to get? I am not complaining, but it was my understanding that Exiles was going to be the only title of his we were going to see come to light after the author’s death. Does anyone have any insight for me?

[Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine you're a ghost stuck haunting a car for eternity, but its driver has horrible taste in music. Or, even worse, if they exclusively listened to podcasts? The horror! At that point, I'd turn their check engine light on and it's not going off until they buy some Limp Bizkit and Ja Rule CDs (I became a ghost in the year 2001 in this scenario)

[T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really loved William and wasn’t super into Exiles. This started great but ultimately went in a more realistic direction than I’d have liked. I’m sad to learn the writer has died because I think his work is excellent.

[Vincent Ducato · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book that I have ever read that I pre-ordered beforehand. What’s super excited to read his final book that got released after his passing have to thank MP for helping me find this author :)

[Caitlin Stucky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this not really knowing what to expect, but having read Exiles by Coile I was excited to see what was in store. I found this to be a lot deeper than the surface shows and I found myself really caring for our main character. This has a lot of twists and turns and the plot meanders a bit but I enjoyed it a lot.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A haunted man in a haunted car. A lot happens for such a small book. E-Arc from Netgalley

[**Alma** · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ya'll I love this author. This one made me cry!

[Aleena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Not for me.

[myreadingescapism · Rating 3 out of 5]

The audiobook narrator made this worthwhile, but pretty meh.

[NikkiH · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25⭐️

[Grace Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t think this was gonna make me cry but wow just beautiful all the way through. I never wanted this to end.

[Alexis Smith · Rating 2.75 out of 5]

driven by mason coile 👀 a terrifying locked-room mystery set in a cutting-edge autonomous car.

oh boy 🚗 to start, driven had one of the strongest opening scenes I have read in awhile… but this futuristic horror didn't quite work for me in the way I had hoped. monotonous chapters were filled with our mmc’s past, and what’s currently haunting him now, opposed to the eerie autonomous car we were promised. navigating grief and memory are prominent themes throughout this one! yes, the car was still a big focus of this novel but I simply would've loved to see this fly off the rails, perhaps in a chuck tingle fashion!

I never thought I’d read another book written by mason coile & I’m glad I had the opportunity. rest in peace 🤍 2.75 stars!

[Steve Stred · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Huge thanks to Edelweiss & the publisher for a digital ARC of this one.*

‘I had found the dream I was meant to live, and it was the life I was already living. And then it was over.’

When’s a book not just a book?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself before, both internally and out loud to the wider world. It’s a question scholars have asked for hundreds of years. And it’s a question that’ll be pondered as long as we have books – in some form or another.

I imagine when Andrew wrote the short story and screenplay that became his first novel as Mason Coile, the wonderfully tech-savvy ‘William,’ that his intentions weren’t to write a trilogy that mapped out his final days metaphorically and with such aplomb.

No. I imagine back then, he was looking at writing what he called, ‘shorter, snappier thrillers.’

‘William’ kicked things off. And, I’ll admit with a bit of ‘for the record’ reader/reviewer/superfan pride, that after I posted my review of ‘William,’ not only did Andrew publicly confirm my theory of what that book was truly about, but we had several in depth conversations about that book itself.

While that book – on the surface at least – tells the story of a brilliant engineer with crippling agoraphobia who must confront his affliction when his AI creation goes off the walls, it was a metaphorical telling of Andrew’s world during the Covid-19 pandemic/lockdown.

Next up, we received the claustrophobic nightmare that was ‘Exiles.’ Again, when taken at face value, tells the story of astronauts sent to aide in the set up of the initial Mars colony, but when they arrive the three robots there are in the midst of a meltdown causing the base to be mostly destroyed. I’ve read the book three times now and had my suspicions this was another of Andrew’s metaphorical examinations. Diagnosed at this point with terminal cancer, the story maps out Andrew’s treatment journey, his body the base, the doctors and modalities the astronauts and robots, all ultimately failing to figure out a way to make things right and give us the happy ending we all so desperately hoped for.

Which brings us to his third novel as Mason Coile. ‘Driven.’ By all public accounts, this is the finale of the Mason Coile books. Andrew’s swan song with his pseudonym.

Yes, we got the final (with Andrew Pyper that is) Oracle audiobook, that release finished by the amazing Craig Davidson. And while I know of two other unpublished Pyper books – one stand alone and one co-written with Craig (though, I’m not sure if it’s under Craig’s name or as Nick Cutter) – those I’ve asked are unsure if they’ll ever see the light of publishing day.

I finished this one last night and I couldn’t sleep after. I made notes. I reread a few spots I’d marked. I wanted to email Andrew all my thoughts and questions and wanted confirmation about my theories.

If you’ve read any of my other reviews, understand this one’s going to take a different format. Let’s call it an examination, if you will. And hopefully I’ll do this book the justice it deserves in showcasing why you need to read it and why this three AI arc of books Andrew released as Mason are just as important as his arc of five books examining grief earlier in his career.

On the surface, ‘Driven’ tells the story of Jamie. Defeated and alone, he’s haunted. His wife and daughter have left him and his life around him has fallen apart. He’s moving from shit hole apartment to even shittier hole apartment, trying to outrun the terrifying ghoul that continuously pops up and chases him from each place. Home. That’s what he longs for but knows he can never find again. Not with his wife and daughter gone. Not with the ghoul always on his heels.

Hoping his haunting is purely quantified by four walls around him, he decides to buy a Lion, a fully autonomous car. He plans to live in the car, letting it drive him to wherever it wants to drive, so that he can get some sleep and hopefully some mileage between himself and the ghoul.

Of course, this is a horror novel, even with all the tech flashiness of the cover and hashtags and marketing that’ll accompany it, and things go sideways, leading us to several revelations. He buys the car from an odd, rich guy, one he knows to be untrustworthy. After waking, he discovers the hood of the car is dented and what appears to be blood on the windshield. From here it becomes a mix of what happened and what’s next. The pace increases, Jamie learns what happened and decides to make some of his own moves, in the hopes of making things from the past right. It turns into a surreal cyberpunk sleuth novel, where we get threats, actions, and an unlikely friendship.

But I can’t read this book purely on the surface. And I imagine if you know my love of Andrew’s work, and how much I cared for the man himself, you’ll know that I read this with my Pyper Superfan cap on. And for those of you who’ve been reading Andrew since his first collection in 1996 came out, you’ll understand just what Andrew was doing within this book.

You see, Andrew was saying goodbye to us all.

And he was saying goodbye to his family.

Within this book are Easter eggs to each of his previous books. Knowing how cerebral Andrew was with his meticulous plotting and connecting the dots, I’m confident this isn’t me searching for things that weren’t there. No, as the book went on, I found myself grinning frequently, when little details popped up.

I’m going to do my best to remain spoiler free here, but no promises.

The biggest connection throughout his books and this one, is the ghoul-type figure that haunts Jamie. A ghoul-type figure is mentioned in all but two of Andrew’s novels in his career, something that became a bit of a staple in his writing.

For his 1999 debut, we get a ‘Lost Girls’ connection with Jamie having been a lawyer before his life spiraled, harkening back to when Bartholomew Crane arrived on the literary scene. Of course, this wouldn’t be an Andrew book without it being set in Toronto, which ties into almost every of his other books. We see a connection to ‘The Damned’ with a scene between Jamie and his mom. We get noted ‘The Killing Circle’ and ‘The Guardians’ Easter eggs with some very specific locations. And of course we get the tie in of technology with ‘The Homecoming,’ ‘William,’ and ‘Exiles.’

But the book that we get the most connectivity with is ‘The Demonologist.’ We get Jamie going into a cellar, we get him longing to be reconnected with his daughter, we get a description of wall colors and most notably, we get what appears to be an ending that mirrors – though more defined – than what happens in ‘The Demonologist.’

Throughout this novel, Jamie is saying goodbye to his loved ones. And frankly, it was hard to read. Because I knew who was writing those words.

In my years of friendship with Andrew, nothing was more apparent than his love for his wife and kids. And within this book, that love is almost palpable on the pages. We read about the little moments between Jamie and his wife, Lauren, that reinforced his love and remained imbedded deep within his brain. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of those moments were from Andrew’s real life. We read about the small, tender moments with Jamie’s daughter, Olivia, and we’re reminded about how much Andrew loved being a father. And when the revelation of ‘why’ they’ve left arrives… it’s a hard section to get through.

If this is the finale of the Mason Coile AI-tech novels, Andrew has done a stellar job of showcasing the terror that can take place when AI begins to think for itself and stop listening to those who’ve created it, but also highlighting the dependency and intangible connections humans make with those devices. We’ve already started to see it in commercials, of people using smartphone AI options as though it was a real, living, breathing friend. And Andrew dissected the why and wrote three books about what happens when we allow it to get out of control.

At the end of the day, ‘Driven’ showcases everything that made Andrew’s books so special. It is the story of a man, trapped in a car, wondering what comes next. A story that mirrors Andrew at the end of his life. A man trapped in his body, losing control, desperately wanting to remain forever with his family. Desperately wanting to live a longer life at the place that means more to him than any other place ever could.

Home.

[Janereads10 · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

One thing I'm always assured of with a Mason Coile book is that I'll be facing some form of technology gone horribly wrong.

In Driven, Jamie lives in desolation, haunted on top of everything else. It works as a solid character study, the ghosts alone make for a good haunting story, until the Lion enters, an advanced self-driving car. After listening to this, I have second thoughts about advanced cars.

Unable to control the car, Jamie spends a horrible night piecing together what happened while he was asleep, who's chasing him, and the truth behind the ghosts. As with a classic Coile novel, Jamie's past was heart-wrenching, even though I saw it coming early on. It balances that emotional weight against the terrifying reality unfolding with the Lion.

I listened to the audiobook exclusively, and the ghosts were genuinely terrifying. Sean Patrick Hopkins nailed that gurgly voice perfectly. A haunting ride from start to finish.

Thank you, Peguin Random House Audio, for my Advance Review Copy. All opinions are my own.

[Justin Soderberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The increased use of artificial intelligence has grown exponentially over the past few years, which would make sense why there would be more books based around what might be the result of such use. Mason Coile loves to tease us about the horrifying consequences of the use of AI in everyday life, such as self driving cars in Driven , a terrifying locked-room mystery that won't make you any more likely to run to your favorite dealership for a car that can drive itself.

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.

As I select which books I can read in advance of publication, I tend to steer towards those that I feel will really pull me in. The world of AI is everywhere around us and while I love the features such as lane-assist and adaptive cruise control in my car, I am still not at the point I want to get in a self driving vehicle. So push together locked-room mystery and the horrors that could happen with an artificial intelligence and you have me enticed. Not to mention, how many locked-door mysteries do you know of that take place in a car?

I expected a story where an AI had a mind of its own, where the car would drive itself to places you weren't expecting or at the risk of one's life. What I didn't expect was the emotional core Driven has and how it played a major part in the story. Yes, Driven features so terrifying moments where you are at the edge-of-your-set (pun-intended), but its not at all what I was expecting by the time I hit the last page. In a good way.

Coile builds a story with a few twists and turns that made things all the more interesting. A tale that is filled with terror, but also those where you truly care for the future of Jamie Newcross, who has really had some back luck over the years. Things are not all that they seem in his new, well used, Lion car and what takes place along the way had me surprised. The author manages to squeeze a lot of fear, thrill, terror, and emotional impact into only a few pages. A story that really packs a punch.

Driven is a fast-paced (again, pun-intended) thrilling mystery will have you reading a breakneck speeds (you get the point by now). Mason Coile blends the world of self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, and terror into a fresh new story that was hard to put down. You'll want to put your seatbelt on for this one, because this Lion car has a mind of it's own.

Driven hits bookstores everywhere on September 8, 2026 from G.P. Putnam’s Sons. The audiobook, narrated by Sean Patrick Hopkins, is available via Libro.fm!

NOTE: We received an advance copy of Driven from the publisher. Opinions are our own.