Kerry Hood was in publishing for many years, working in publicity for several publishers over the time, working on fiction and non-fiction titles. Crime and thrillers have always been those she turns to first, however, and the ones she reads late at night or when she has a quiet moment.
Readers of the number one bestselling author Ruth Ware have been clamouring for a follow-up to The Woman in Cabin 10 since its publication. Well, here it is – extremely gripping it is too and will in no way disappoint all those waiting for it.
At the centre of the novel is the confounding relationship between journalist Lo Blacklock and her nemesis, the mercurial Carrie, who almost killed and then saved her on the ill-fated voyage on the Aurora several years before. There might be no sea on this new journey, but there is certainly enough intense, confusing emotion to fill an ocean.
Lo is asked to cover the opening of a luxury Swiss hotel on the banks of Lake Geneva – if she can achieve an exclusive interview with the reclusive billionaire Marcus Leidmann. Now living in New York with her husband and two little boys, she is safe, loved and secure. It is only the nightmares that regularly threaten to derail her that provide the scary bumps in her new life. Accepting the challenge, Lo leaves her family behind and flies to Switzerland. From arriving at the airport, she is treated with unusual deference – upgraded on the flight, escorted and welcomed by name at the hotel, a fabulous suite, and personal service … it should have been enough to raise a warning red flag. At the opening dinner, Lo found others who had been on the Aurora, and suddenly more memories of that dreadful journey crash in on her.
Later that night she is summoned to Suite 11, which is Marcus Leidmann’s suite, and because she must secure the interview, she reluctantly finds her way to the correct room. And that is when the story kicks off because the person who opens the door, isn’t Leidmann.
It doesn’t take long for Lo to discover just how long a billionaire’s reach is – particularly an obsessive, controlling one. She can run, but there is no hiding, and with her husband thousands of miles away in another country, making the right decisions at speed when in danger is hard. And when your passport is gone, and you are in jail suspected of murder, the turmoil of panic, and who to turn to, is all-consuming. Throw into the growing cat-and-mouse chase involving the one person she wasn’t expecting to see, Carrie, and the ride is thrilling, dangerous, and so very complicated. Should she trust her – could she trust her – ever again?
Ruth Ware is an accomplished author, who knows just how to dangle a possible plot, then whisk it away, to throw in confusion and violence, twist after twist, and then another, before leaving you with a last page that brings it all together and allows you to sink back every bit as exhausted as Lo Blacklock.
Brilliant stuff.
