There’s something tragic about how desperately Ruth Ware tries to be the new Agatha Christie. I mean, she doesn’t need to, she’s already immensely (some might say undeservedly) popular in her own right, but she just can’t seem to help it. Mind you, my first read by Ware was The Turn of A Key, which didn’t give me this impression, but then I finally got to her debut and it was blatantly obvious and spelled out. Ware tried to write the And Then There Were None. \
She failed lamentably in Dark, Dark Wood, but with this book, her sixth and latest, she got closer. Still failed, because the goal is inherently flawed. And Then There Were None is as good as it is partly precisely because it was the first of its kind. It introduced an entirely new premise. Reworking it now and adding hip modernistic spin on it doesn’t change the fact that at best the final product would be a mere pastiche. But the thing about obsessions is that they are not innately reasonable or rational. And if one gets obsessed with recreating a masterwork of the genre, one will try. And try. And try. There’s no hiding it, the title itself is a sort of ersatz And Then There Were None and, of course, Christie’s book has had its fair share of controversial titles (as discussed in Dark, Dark Wood) so that’s a story in itself. Next, Ware got the number right. Dark, Dark Wood didn’t have enough people, here she did the correct number…ten. Then Ware returned to snow, because getting people snowed in Dark, Dark Wood apparently wasn’t enough. And this time she snowed them in properly, avalanche in the ski country properly. And then the bodies begin to turn up. To Ware’s credit she didn’t make the solution to this mystery as ridiculously easy and obvious as she did in her debut. But still, it isn’t that tough to figure out and moreover the author herself can’t wait to tell you, so she dos the grand reveal almost three quarters of the way in and then proceeds with a very, very, very drawn out denouement. Someone knows how to hit their page counts. Mind you, Christie managed to tell a much more exciting story in just 272 pages, but as I’ve mentioned, this is merely a pastiche. The plot involves a bunch of obnoxious millennial tossers of a popular music app fame who come together to make some tough business decisions over a skiing trip. They are perfectly groomed, soulless pretty cardboards, tv ready and hip to a fault. The app concept itself isn’t the dumbest idea as far as these things go (you get to listen to the music another person’s listening to in real time), though they plan to make it complete sh*t by introducing GPS software that would enable you to narrow down user’s location. Which is insane, considering how many celebrities use it and no one ever explains why this would be a good and marketable idea. But at any rate, the app and its app people have an opportunity to sell out for a pretty buck or quid, since it’s British. And they are at odds about it. Nothing a murder or two can’t solve, really. And to foil those telegenic tech geniuses there are Erin and Danny, the people whose job it is to host, feed and take care of the guests. Alternatively, it can be said their job is to be the voice of reason. Erin actually does the bulk of it since she is one of the two main narrators, the other one being Liz, the meek and quiet minority shareholder and a complete outsider to the culture, the only one out of the app people who doesn’t belong. Since no one checks weather reports prior to booking vacations, the second everyone gets to the ski lounge, the extreme weather begins. And then the murders. Because blood looks so good against the snow, presumably. A very ski centric novel. Skiing is a weird thing, one I can never understand the appeal of. The forbidding weather, the cumbersome outfits, the speeding down on sticks and planks. But people go for it, especially ones of the pretentious variety, like the characters in this book. So there’s a very good chance this might be the best ski themed murder mystery there is, but it is by no means the best murder mystery out there. And it’s nowhere near Christie’s. Nevertheless, Ware is a very, very popular author, her books are forever out at the library and it’s easy to see the appeal. She got the genre down, from pacing to dynamics to every cliché there’s to hit, she works the formula well and produces easily digestible fun thrillers. And so while I do think she is considerably overrated, I’d probably read more. And maybe one day she’ll come into her own with enough conviction that she won’t try so obviously to emulate other authors. That would be great, actually. But probably not, though. People get set in their ways, especially when their ways bring them wild commercial success. At any rate, that’s the book. Quick fun read, but does leave a lot to be desired.
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