A good one if you’re after the sort of swift, atmospheric read Lapena is the master of. Heavy on fast paced plotting; not so thorough on creating three dimensional characters.
The setting is a plush, out of the way hotel in the Catskills with no internet connectivity. It’s all quite lovely for the ten guests and two staff, until a storm shuts down the electricity and phone lines and makes it impossible for anyone to come or go. After that it’s more like Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians but colder, with people getting relentlessly picked off while the remaining guests and staff stumble about the unheated hotel brandishing their iPhones, becoming increasingly desperate as their batteries fade. Is it too much to expect an isolated hotel would have a stash of battery operated torches?? Apparently it is. I’ll take my own torch on holidays from now on.
Lapena provides us with detailed background information on all but two of the guests as they arrive at the hotel. The lack of background information on these two characters is SPOILER ALERT a fairly enourmous omission that allows us as readers to suspect the identity the murderer quite early on, with a fifty/fifty chance of getting it right. Bit disappointing, really. But still, worth a quick read to find out why.
