The Woman in Cabin 10

The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware

Synopsis

Lo Blackwood, a travel journalist, has the assignment of her career: one of ten slots on the maiden voyage of the luxury passenger ship, the Aurora.  From the moment she steps on board, Lo is swept up in the plush interior and free-flowing alcohol, hob-nobbing with rich and important people. The night after departure, Lo is awoken by scream and a loud splash. She is sure she witnessed someone being thrown overboard, complete with blood smeared on the deck. And yet, when security comes, the blood is gone, and all passengers are accounted for. Lo is sure of what she saw, but as she begins to investigate, things begin to spiral out of control.

Review

This book is like a Hitchcock thriller, or Agatha Christie. There's a girl who disappears but no one else has seen her and no one is missing. Who was she and where could she have gone? Who is hiding something? The main character doesn't quite trust her own mind and has anxiety and panic attacks which makes people distrust her. 

The main character, Lo, isn't brilliant or special or courageous. In fact, she's quite the opposite.  and that is one reason I liked her. She's normal and has to force herself to get through some scary things. However, I feel like the author tried to create an unreliable narrator by giving Lo a severe panic disorder and medication that she takes for it. Thus, is what she experiencing real or the result of combining her drugs with alcohol (which is what some characters believe)? Plus, in the beginning Lo's house is robbed, which makes her so panicky and scared that she barely sleeps for the three days before she leaves on the trip. I kept waiting for the robbery to tie back into the plot, but it seemed to only serve as an incident to make her even more jumbled up. For me, using anxiety as a device to cast doubt on Lo's interpretation of events only served to stigmatize mental illness. 

Plot-wise, I liked that it wasn't an easy way out at the end. Things kept going wrong and she had to figure out how to deal with it. However, I felt like this was a step below what could have been a really good thriller. I would have liked the stakes to be higher, the consequences for her failure to be more severe, and for Lo to have had to stretch even more as a character to get her through, maybe to have had to make some tough, no-right-answer decisions.

All in all, it was a good mystery, kept me guessing, and I did not quite see the ending coming, so that's always a plus. It's a quick, engaging read, so if you're looking for a good book for a flight or train ride, this would be a good option.


Rating
I give this book 3 stars


Details
Genre: Mystery, Thriller.
Language: Lots of language.
Sex: Some mention of it, but no sex scenes.
Violence: Some violence, not too graphic.