Laura, a travel writer, is invited on a small cruise and sees a woman's body go overboard. But there are no passengers unaccounted for so no one believes her. She is determined to solve the mystery. Very well written with lots of plot twists and turns. Good suspense. I couldn't figure it out which is a good thing.

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Well, one doesn't have to like the main character to enjoy a book!

Lo Blacklock was pathetic, she loved Judah but wouldn't commit, she had an anxiety disorder being treated with pills, she was claustrophobic, her head always hurt and she was an alcoholic. What a mess!

However, the book was riveting from beginning to end and I finished in two sittings since I had to make dinner!

If you like thrillers, you will enjoy this one.

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Blah! This is one of the most boring books I have tried to read. I gave up and skimmed to the back to see the ending and still couldn't tell you how it ended. There are soooo many people on the boat - who are they, and why, and who cares?! I didn't even care about Lo and she's the main character (and an idiot - let me rephrase - a drunken, indecisive, weak, scatter-brained, idiot) I have another of Ruth Ware's books but I'm leery to give it a try...

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If you liked The Girl on the Train, you'll like this book. Unfortunately I didn't like either book. But just move the main character from a train to a ship and VOILA!!
The good: the actual mystery was interesting but I figured it out in the first third of the book. I only kept reading to see if I was right. I was. The pacing is good and the actual writing is the only thing that saved this book from TT (Total Tediousness)
The bad: I want to be able to either root FOR or root AGAINST someone in the book. Mostly I didn't care about anyone. The bad guys were vaguely drawn. And the good guys... well who WERE the good guys? Certainly not the drunken pill popping protagonist. She can be summed up in 3 words. Dunk and Drunkerer. Oh and add whiny and rude to the list. I kept asking, right to the last page, What in HECK does her boyfriend see in her? I was almost hoping she'd be thrown overboard so the book would just END.

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Travel Journalist Laura "Lo" Blacklock has been given the task of writing about a new luxury cruise ship called "The Aurora" and its voyage on the North Sea. One night Lo wakes from a sound sleep when she hears a noise coming from the next cabin. Then she hears a splash which she believes was a body being dumped overboard. Lo immediately calls the ship's security officer for help and explains what she heard. A search of Cabin 10 shows that it was not occupied, even though Lo talked to a woman in that cabin earlier in the night. When everyone on board is accounted for, the ship's crew and passengers dismiss Lo's claims. She is beginning to question herself when someone leaves her a message to "stop digging".

This psychological thriller started out slow. Lo was a weak heroine who I found irritating and somewhat unlikeable. She was constantly popping pills for her anxiety, then drinking too much. I'm not surprised that the crew didn't believe her claims. I was even questioning if the whole scenario was something she cooked up in her head and actually believed happened.

The mystery itself was a simple locked-room mystery. The passengers and crew are at sea on a small cruise ship. The internet is not working, so there is no communication with the mainland. I did figure out part of the mystery, but not all of it. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Imogene Church who does a fantastic job with Lo. My rating: 3.5 Stars.

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This was a quick read that ultimately didn't live up to its potential. It's written using one of the most overused plot device to become popular over the last couple of years - the unreliable narrator - and the result is a book starring a woman too annoying for the reader to root for. Lo Blacklock (a ridiculous name too) is a mess - she drinks too much, is rude to everyone she meets, and exhibits no intelligence or professionalism that would make anyone mistake her for a competent journalist. The fact that she happened to be right about a crime having taken place has more to do with blind luck than anything else.

The real mystery, once it's revealed, was a let down. During the first half of the book, I at least was able to enjoy the book as I was curious as to what was really going on. But once that is revealed at about the halfway point, the book came to a grinding halt. From then on, it's just pages and pages of Lo talking to herself, working on the mystery in her head so the author can info dump on the readers. And when I finally turned the last page, I had trouble believing the book is actually over since at no point in the book did Lo even come face to face with the real killer! (The real resolution to the plot actually happened off-page without Lo even being present.) Talking about anti-climactic...

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An above average whodunit with a plausible plot. I enjoyed it; a good, fast read. I didn't think the main character was all that awful, and it really didn't matter, the story is good anyway.

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Good, but not a great book. Dragged at times for me. But then again, I'm a guy and maybe it just wasn't written for me.

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