Helpful Score: 1
It's ok. Ruth Ware's seems to all follow the same playbook: slightly implausible situations, unnecessary lies, characters who fluctuate wildly between taking crazy risks (the DON'T GO UP IN THE DARK ATTIC!!!! kind of risks) and being unwilling to say boo to a goose ... Remove those things, and you have no novel!
However ... it was fun. Once again, like Ware's "The Woman in Cabin 10" the fun seemed to tail off toward the end, as the Alert Reader's suspicions about what was going on were pretty well confirmed, and everything else began to feel like padding. I liked the use of the tarot cards, as a prop for main character Hal, and a way to focus her "reading" of the other characters' personalities and motivations. The tarot is a wonderful source of imagery and metaphor, and Ware uses it pretty well. I thought Ware took a risk with her references to "Rebecca" (The Big Spooky Old House that is the central to the Late Mrs. Westaway's contentious will is located near Penzance, so the whole novel has various hints and winks to "Rebecca.")
It just reminded me that Rebecca isn't just in another league from this -- it's on a whole different planet ...
However ... it was fun. Once again, like Ware's "The Woman in Cabin 10" the fun seemed to tail off toward the end, as the Alert Reader's suspicions about what was going on were pretty well confirmed, and everything else began to feel like padding. I liked the use of the tarot cards, as a prop for main character Hal, and a way to focus her "reading" of the other characters' personalities and motivations. The tarot is a wonderful source of imagery and metaphor, and Ware uses it pretty well. I thought Ware took a risk with her references to "Rebecca" (The Big Spooky Old House that is the central to the Late Mrs. Westaway's contentious will is located near Penzance, so the whole novel has various hints and winks to "Rebecca.")
It just reminded me that Rebecca isn't just in another league from this -- it's on a whole different planet ...
