Ruth Ware has written mysteries and thrillers involving dysfunctional families, toxic friendships and writhe romance. With One by One she wanted to explore a different classify of relationship – that between work colleagues – and how this type of relationship might come under strain when there ’ s a murderer in the company .As with her previous novels we have a female supporter trip up in a position where a group of people are locked down, so to speak, in a localization and, effectively, no-one can come and go. here the dangerous setting is the french Alps and our protagonist is Erin. She and her colleague Danny, a chef, are trapped in a mountain cabin by an avalanche. With them are the staff of Snoop, the technical school company behind a music sharing app who are staying at the St Antoine luxury fall back for a corporate retreat .
right from the startle it is clear up that there is a jarring divide between two groups within the company – those who want to sell Snoop to a larger corporate and those who don ’ t. Emotions are running high, but do mergers and acquisitions provide enough motivation for murder ? Well, they good might…
Ware switches perspective between Liz, a former employee of Snoop, who for reasons initially obscure was invited to the retrograde with her ex-colleagues and Erin, who is in charge of hosting the party at the fall back. Joining them are an extensive cast of characters, each with later motives and each apparently more collusive than the future. First there is the CEO and co-founder, Topher St Clair-Bridges, a trust fund kid who urgently wants to keep his hold on the company. Opposing him is Eva avant-garde hideout Berg, the other co-founder who happens to be Topher ’ s ex-girlfriend, and who wants to sell the party. Rik, Elliot, Miranda, Tiger-Blue and Carl make up some of the colorful group, reflecting the stereotypes you ’ d expect to find within a youthful and trendy technical school company – a medium, a health-fanatic, a geeky technical school ridicule, a straight-talking lawyer and, of course, an outsider who doesn ’ metric ton fit in with the rest of the cool kids.
On the first day the group goes out on a challenge ski expedition, despite the at hand avalanche, and that ’ s when the retrograde claims its first victim. Was it the upwind, or possibly a murderer ? Seeing as she disappeared into slender publicize, no-one very knows how she met her supposed death. When the avalanche envelops the cabin soon after, trapping the group inside, they realise that the odds of her surviving outside are slender to none. When employee after employee is cryptically killed off it becomes clear that person is cutting down on staff for their own profit .
One by One follows a similar practice to And then There Were None, but doesn ’ t quite meet the Agatha Christie standard. even though it has a strong sense of place and all the right elements it lacks the ill atmosphere we by and large associate with this type of crime thriller. You may find that the killer turns out to be merely who you thought it was, and see this coming far besides early in the novel .
Adding the name of each character, their Snoop music visibility and what they are listening to at the begin of each part is an matter to concept which adds some context, however after a few pages it becomes distracting and largely pleonastic.
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One by One ’ second strengths lie in two areas – its feel of place and its main protagonist, Erin. Throughout we are teased with hints of Erin ’ s past and this is what keeps the narrative going. There are ample secondary coil characters to create interest – besides many, possibly – but it all feels barely a shred superficial and deplorably, predictable. Towards the end it is indeed Erin ’ randomness character, her observations and her backstory which help One by One stand out from the broad image of competing crime fiction novels .
This is the perfective read if you crave something lightly, thrilling and entertaining to keep you distracted over a weekend or the holidays.
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besides see our reviews of The Death of Mrs Westaway, The Lying Game and The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware .
Penguin
Kindle/Print/iBook
£7.99
CFL Rating: 3 Stars
