Ruth Ware has long been hailed as a modern day Agatha Christie and in her latest mystery-thriller, One by One, she shows herself to be more than worthy of the accolade! Set in a luxury chalet in the exclusive alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine, One by One is a story of corporate greed, personal betrayal, and good old fashioned sleuthing worthy of the Queen of Crime herself. British tech start-up Snoop is the hottest music app around. Faced with the prospect of a make or break corporate buyout, company directors Topher and Eva decide to take the key stakeholders to a luxury alpine chalet for a weekend of crisis talks and R&R. Reluctantly accompanying them is Liz, former PA to the company and a minor shareholder owing to a chance offer made to Topher and Eva long ago. Looking after the group are chalet host Erin and chef Danny, both experts in catering for even the fussiest of guests and more the prepared to handle the whims of Snoop’s somewhat eclectic senior team. As the buyout talks commence, tensions rise and the weather worsens. And then the avalanche hits and the first body is found… Ruth Ware is an absolute genius at building tension. As I said in my review of The Death of Mrs Westaway, twists and turns are her forte and there were more than a few unexpected surprises in One by One that had me turning the pages frantically! Unlike in Mrs Westaway however, I didn’t feel that this complexity of plotting came at the expense of characterisation. Despite their being a relatively large cast, I really got a sense of who each of the characters were and what made them tick. The Snoopers are, for the most part, the kind of characters that you absolutely love to hate – wrapped up in their million-dollar world of private-school networks, old-boy investors, corporate lunches and executive dinners, they have little understanding of the realities of life. As soon as I read that one of the Snoop job titles was ‘Head of Cool’, I knew that I’d have a kind of grim satisfaction in watching their privileged worlds fall apart once the avalanche hit and reality came to bite. Contrasting with these largely unlikable tech types are narrators Erin and Liz. Chalet girl Erin and her friend Danny, the chalet’s chef, are down-to-earth and practical, although Erin is hiding a dark secret behind her cheery facade. Former Snoop PA Liz has always felt like a fish out of water. Educated at the local comp and with a wardrobe more Primarni than Armani, Liz knows she’s only been invited to the chalet as a pawn in the corporate battle of wills taking place between Snoop founders Eva and Topher. But as with Erin, there’s more to shy and mousey Liz than meets the eye! Ruth Ware takes time to establish her cast and to set up the premise of Snoop and the corporate buyout, as well as to hint at some of the complexities behind the relationships of the key cast. These framing chapters can sometimes be tedious in a thriller but Ware does an excellent job of balancing the need for exposition with a mounting sense of unease and tension, using small incidents to develop the characters and show that all is not well beneath the glossy exterior of Snoop. When the avalanche hits, the tension really ramps up a notch, with the characters suddenly thrown into an extreme situation made only more dangerous by the bodies that suddenly start appearing. As with Christie’s And Then There Were None, it becomes clear that someone in the chalet is a murderer. The guests seem to be being picked off one by one, with deliberate care and menace. But why? Answering that question, and discovering the identity of the murderer, will require the remaining chalet guests, along with Erin and Danny, to break out of their comfort zones, trust each other, and face some dark realities about their pasts. As you can hopefully tell from my review, I really enjoyed One by One. Combining a good old-fashioned murder mystery (remote location, limited number of suspects, everyone has something to hide) with some thrilling set-pieces and an exceptional explosion of an ending, One by One shows Ruth Ware to be at the top of her game and is sure to delight both mystery and thriller fans this winter. If you’re looking for a page-turning read to curl up with on a cold evening, you’d do a lot worse than picking this one up!

There is no doubt that Ruth Ware is one of my favourite authors and One By One is her latest gripping story. Set in the beautiful and snowy French Alps, it features a group of people gathering for a corporate retreat, the two staff members running the remote resort, dangerous secrets, a killer ready to do anything to protect those secrets, and weather conditions that keep the characters isolated from the rest of the world. And, because of all these elements, I spent an enjoyable Saturday completely engrossed in the story. Based on the many thrillers I read, corporate retreats are a bad idea… they always end badly! In One By One, inspired by Agatha Christie, Ruth Ware creates a story in which the employees and shareholders of a successful app company reunite in a resort to discuss the future of the company and to ski. With millions of dollars at stake and secrets threatening to come to light, the tension is high. Things get worse when an avalanche isolates them with no cell reception and no way to call for help. When one of them disappears, it becomes clear that there is a killer on the loose and no one is safe. When everyone is a suspect, who can you trust? The story is told from two points of views. Lily, a former employee of the app company, finds herself in the middle of the battle between the two founders of the company. Thanks to her perspective, we get a deep and interesting insight inside the company and its members. On the other hand, for Erin the chalet in Saint Antoine is her escape from her past. Even from the outside, it is clear that tempers are fraught between her new guests and things take a dark turn when one of them disappears. Ruth Ware never disappoints. I loved the cold and immersive setting, the deceitful and suspicious characters, the clever, chilling, and addictive plot. I raced through One By One. How could I not? I needed to know who the murderer was and it took me by surprise. I don’t know if One By One is my favourite of Ruth Ware’s novels, because I love all of her books, but it is definitely a must-read! Highly recommended!

It begins as a bonding holiday for the directors and shareholders of the hugely successful app Snoop, which is the new craze to hit music world but they soon realise they are there for another reason. I liked the opening chapter of this book, set in the Alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine. The last guests had gone and all the cleaning, preparation and re-stocking the chalet had been completed. Erin and Danny, the chalet hosts, were taking a well earned time out before the new guests arrived. They weren’t to know that it was literally the calm before the storm. The new guests are a real mixed bunch that took a little time to get to know, especially with some of them having names that could be male or female. They are mainly boisterous which makes them memorable or geeks and mousey which again worked for me. The atmosphere turns sour when the real reason for the trip is revealed. When the group are taken out on the slopes it is with caution, although they are of mixed abilities. A weather front is coming in rapidly. Left by Erin, so she can do chores back at the chalet, the group make their way up the mountain. Not everyone returns and when they do it isn’t long before the chalet is hit by an avalanche, making the rest of them cut off from the nearest town. By the time the avalanche hit I had got to know the characters and what their role in the company was. The story moves into a ‘Whodunnit’ mode as unexplained deaths hit the group. There are plenty of people with a motive for wanting their colleagues, friends and co-shareholders dead, but which one is capable of murder? The descriptions of Saint Antoine are superb, the slopes, the Piste and the avalanche. Ruth Ware is an atmospheric writer as she built in my mind the scene of beauty and treachery and the deterioration of everything in the chalet, including the people as time goes on. The last quarter of the book is very intense with brilliant heart-pounding moments that made this book impossible to put down. I wish to thank the publisher and NetGalley for an e-copy of this book plus a hard copy, which had been delayed in the post due to covid.

I love to ski, but I’ve only ever stayed in ski hotels, in the heart of bustling resorts with lots of other cheery people and lively apres-ski activity. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to stay in an exclusive chalet, waited on hand and foot and with every luxury at your fingertips after a hard day on the slopes. Well, now I’ve read this book, oppressive, isolated and lonely are the words that spring to mind. I think I’ll stick to my cheap and cheerful accommodation! Set in the tiny ski resort of Antoine 2000, the book opens with the two chalet hosts, Erin and Danny, setting up the luxury chalet for its latest guests, the management team of hip, music-sharing app, Snoop. The atmosphere begins off in a laid-back way, with Danny and Erin laughing and joking and relaxing in their surroundings, getting to enjoy the luxury themselves for a few hours. This all provides the reader with a false sense of warmth and security, which makes the flip to the nightmarish reality later in the book all the more horrifying. Once the Snoop team arrive, it becomes clear that they aren’t an altogether pleasant bunch, and that there are tensions running rife through the group with regard to the running of the business and where it is headed. I loved the idea of Snoop, and being able to nosy in on what music other people are listening to in real time. Is this a little insight into who people really are, or would it make individuals feel they had to maintain a facade, even in their private time? This is an interesting theme explored in the book, the difference between the public face we choose to show the world, and who we really are underneath, what truths about ourselves are we hiding. Anyone who has read any of Ruth’s books before will know that she is the queen of the page-turner. Her chapters are short and snappy, full of action, always driving the plot forward and it is so easy and tempting to read ‘just one more chapter, just one more,’ until your realise you haven’t looked up for a couple of hours and you are halfway through the book. There is always something at the end of one chapter that means you have to read the next, making the book very pacy and addictive. I could have read it in a single sitting, if sleep hadn’t got in the way. I really loved One By One, it gave me everything I want from a gripping thriller. Fast-paced plot, oppressive atmosphere, clever set up that looks like it gives the protagonist no way out of their predicament, shocking turns of event, cleverly built and atmospheric location, secrets, lies, dilemmas, a mix of likeable and unlikeable characters and a shocking conclusion. I did have my suspicions about who was to blame for what was going on from quite early on, but this did not in anyway detract from my enjoyment of the book or the sense of tension built in the narrative. It is one of those books that you race through to get to the end because you have to know what happens, and then wish you could go back to the beginning and read it for the first time all over again. Excellent stuff.

Snow is falling in the exclusive French ski resort of Saint Antoine and the shareholders and directors of the hottest music app, Snoop, hope that, but the end of the corporate retreat, they will have decided their company’s future: a billion pound dot com by out or the not sell. But with a near split on what to do, a decision must be made. But when one board member vanishes moments before an avalanche cuts the chalet, its guest and the two staff, off from help, business tensions turn to a desperate urge to survive. But something doesn’t feel right about the disappearance… it’s as if this was a murder. But was it murder, an accident or are they safe somewhere else? Because, if it was murder, that means the murderer is with them… This book feels very much like a homage to Agatha Christie. There is the obviously And Then There Were None, but there are little nods to other Christie mysteries or clues, which I won't say as I fear that revealing them might be a spoiler. And, like a Christie, once this book hits its stride, you are running with the plot, feeling the uneasy and tension of the characters and trying to figure out if there is a killer and, if so, who? An interesting difference between And Then There Were None and One By One is how the story is told. And Then There Were None is told in third person, watching all ten characters trapped on an tiny island off Devon, but in One By One, the story is told by two characters: Erin, who works at the chalet, and Liz, one of Snoop’s shareholders, owning only 2% and who REALLY doesn’t want to go to the chalet. Because of this, the story adds an extra layer of tension as we, the readers, are with the characters as realisation slowly dawns on them and, at the same time, see some dark secrets of people come to light. While I devoured this book, I do have one or two small issues. The first is the beginning felt a tad slow for my tastes. I know why - we need to know these characters before it begins to hit the fan, but when I read a mystery, I don’t want to spend the first chunk of the book, going “Where’s my murder/disappearance?”. I feel that undermines what the book is trying to set up. And the second was one tiny detail near the end. Something happened near the end and it didn't sit right with me. But I devoured this in three/fours days and I would happily recommend this to Agatha Christie fans as they will eat this up! Plus, with this coming out near Christmas, this will be the perfect Christmas chiller! ***I received a copy from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for a review***