I actually thought this was a really great homage to And Then There Were None. The main reason why I gave it 4 stars though is that the back and forth between the current investigation to what happened to the people off to a luxury spa really did slow the book down a lot. I also didn’t care about the potential romance between the homicide investigator Mason Deniaud and the search and rescue (SAR) expert Callie Sutton. I just thought both of their side stories were just mainly fluff to the overall story being told. Also, the beginning was a bit confusing and I think that there should have been some segues into how the guests got onto the plane, because I was confused for pages and then just let it go. But I loved the overall plot and thought how things got resolved were great.
In the Dark begins following a man named Dan who is being transported along with 7 other people to a hotel before they go off to a secret luxury spa in the middle of nowhere (seriously though, I would have stayed home). The book quickly shifts to Mason Deniaud who gets called out to a plane crash site. When the plane gets dislodged due to him in essence knocking it loose, he and his team along with SAR people (including Callie Sutton as the lead) go out and search for the plane. Finding the plane is just a start though, it becomes obvious the woman in the plane was murdered. The questions is by who and how did she end up in the plane and river. And from there the book shifts back and forth to the people on the luxury spa trip who quickly find out things are not what they seem and mason and Callie trying to find them and what happened to them.
I honestly thought the way White let’s everyone realize quite quickly how they all got brought together and why. The fun part was working out who was doing it and why. You would think you figured it out and another body was found (present day) or someone was killed (in the past).
As I said, I liked how this ended and thought it was clever. Really solid closed circle mystery novel.
