I have been seeing this one all over the place but hadn’t really been interested as it seemed like a The Girl on the Train knockoff. Although it has shades of Girl on the Train, I was pleasantly surprised.
We meet our heroine, Lauren ‘Lo’ Blacklock, as she is being burgled in her London flat- she comes face to face with the thief who then locks her in her bedroom while he completes his crime and escapes. Although she is thankful to have not been assaulted- or worse- the incident leaves her understandably on edge. Couple this post-traumatic stress with Lo’s pre-existing anxiety disorder, some insomnia and the alcohol over-indulgence to self-medicate, and you have an unreliable narrator a la The Girl on the Train. The real mystery starts when Lo, a journalist with a travel magazine, is on a work trip onboard a small (12 cabin) luxury cruiseship’s maiden voyage. Lo’s assignment of writing a fluffy promo piece is scuttled when she hears a scream and a splash- she thinks she’s heard a murder but will anyone believe her?
Although I found the initial parts of the cruise a little tedious- and I wanted to shake Lo and tell her to just take a sleeping pill already so that I knew whether or not to trust her narration- things really pick up speed and switch to a more interesting ‘Agatha Christie’ style locked room style about halfway through. I enjoyed it; it was a perfect beach read thriller for my summer staycation. I’ll be passing it around to friends for their beach staycation reads and also look to pick up Ware’s other novels.
I know this isn’t Ware’s first novel, but this was my #Gateway into her books.
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