Right from the start she’s having issues because of home life problems and sea sickness… and the sound of a woman being thrown overboard. The Woman in Cabin 10 follows Lo Blacklock, a journalist, as she takes a job on for her boss to report on a new luxury yacht cruise. Ruth Ware is probably one of my new top five favorite mystery writers. I instantly dove in and I will start with this. When my book club selected this novel for our August book, I was so excited. I have always heard great things about Ruth Ware, but it always seemed my book reading schedule was so packed I never had time to grab one of her books. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. Agent: Eve White, Eve White Literary (U.K.).Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins.

Those expecting a Christie-style locked-room mystery at sea will be disappointed. No one, unsurprisingly, believes her, or buys her story of a mysterious woman she saw lurking on the ship hours earlier. Everything on the Aurora is sparkly and decadent, from the chandeliers to the wealthy guests, most of whom are either fellow travel writers or investors brought on by owner Lord Richard Bullmer, but Lo is distracted from the scenery-the ship is headed for a tour of the Norwegian fjords-by her certainty that she heard the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the water from the adjacent cabin. A break-in at her London flat days before her departure does little more than set up Lo as an easily startled protagonist. In Ware’s underwhelming sophomore mystery (after 2015’s In a Dark, Dark Wood), Laura “Lo” Blacklock thinks stepping in for her pregnant boss for a week-long jaunt on the new miniature cruise ship Aurora will give her a leg up at Velocity, the magazine where she’s toiled for years.

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware