Ruth Ware is back at it again. It meaning being a pale imitation of Agatha Christie. But you know she must be doing something right to gain the sort of universal acclaim and adoration she is getting. And that something is tapping directly into the popular market and riding the thriller estrogen wave all the way to the shore.
Yes, she plies formulas, often formulas previously seen and done by Agatha Christie, yes, she writes the same characters over and over, but she seems to know what she’s doing, there’s a slick deliberateness behind it all. It’s all pop fiction, absolutely, beach or otherwise, it’s all about as profound as a soap dish and occasionally just as bubbly, but it works. On a very basic level it works well and entertains. A terror at high seas...not quite. This is now my third read by her and it seems to be the least predictable, which is to say the crucial plot twist that mystery thriller genre lives and dies by, here is slightly less obvious that it was in her two other books. The formula she’s beating to death here once again is a locked something mystery, this time a locked cruise ship. A luxury cruise ship, mind you, a very fancy kind, loaded with the glittery shiny well to do cardboard cutouts of characters and among them a misfit, an ambitious middling reporter, a commitment phobic woman in her 30s with an antidepressant dependency and a penchant for drinking, also with freshly acquired PTSD from being burgled in her flat. Which is to say not the most reliable of witnesses, so when she thinks she sees/hears a murder (some Rear Window thrown in there too, because why not, apparently) in a cabin next to her, she has some convincing to do. And then some sleuthing. And then she really steps into it and it becomes all about pure survival. And meanwhile Ware throws in snippets of information meant to mislead readers. But is the protagonist going to make it? Well, you’ll just have to read and find out. You might not care, she certainly isn’t especially likeable or engaging, but she’s got the same appeal as Ware’s books, superficial and pop. The kind of books that the great literati (and yes, that is sarcasm) Reese Witherspoon folksily suggest y’all check out. Overall, as far as quick mindless thrillers go, this fits the bill perfectly. Just don’t expect more. This is an author who found her perch and appears to be very comfortable there. But, with reasonably adjusted expectations, you will be entertained.
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