If you’ve yet to read Ruth Ware’s mystery novels, you are in for a treat! So far she’s written five standalone mystery novels that are all very different from each other but all sit firmly within the crime genre. I love that she always treats me to a different mystery than the previous one and always delivers on twists, centering women’s lives, and an engrossing read. I’m going to talk about Ware’s novels in order of publication, but by all means, you can read them in any order you’d like—they’re all standalones. I mean, I read her first novel after having read her other four novels and yes, it was still very good and worth the hype.
When the invitation to attend the press opening of a luxury Swiss hotel arrives, it’s like the answer to a prayer. Three years after the birth of her youngest child, Lo Blacklock is ready to reestablish her journalism career. The chateau on the shores of Lake Geneva is everything Lo’s ever dreamed of, and she hopes she can snag an interview with the owner. Unfortunately, he proves to be even more difficult to pin down than his reputation suggests. When Lo gets a late-night call asking her to come to Marcus’s hotel room, she agrees despite her own misgivings. She’s greeted, however, by a woman claiming to be Marcus’s mistress, and in life-or-death jeopardy.
What follows is a thrilling pursuit across Europe, forcing Lo to ask herself just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to save this woman…and if she can even trust her?
Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out and things with her boyfriend, Nico aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, she agrees to try out with him.
But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real–and the stakes are life or death.
This was my first read of Ware’s and it remains my favorite–because this time around, she leaned into Agatha Christie vibes. Lo Blacklock, who writes for a travel magazine, is having a hard time after a break-in at her apartment, so she thinks an assignment on a new luxury cruise will be a good change of scenery. And…it’s not! She swears she sees a woman’s body thrown overboard into the water, but no one else saw it. No one even has a record of a missing passenger. Is everyone on this cruise a suspect like in Clue, or can Lo not trust what she saw?
Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends–Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily–during their first term. By the end of the year, April was dead.
Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide…including a murder.
Hired by companies to break into buildings and hack security systems, Jack and her husband, Gabe, are the best penetration specialists in the business. But after a routine assignment goes horribly wrong, Jack arrives home to find her husband dead. To add to her despair, the police are closing in on their suspect–her.
Suddenly on the run and quickly running out of options, Jack must decide who she can trust as she circles closer to the real killer.
Getting snowed in at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world. Especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. Unless that company happens to be eight coworkers…each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide.
When the cofounder of Snoop, a trendy London-based tech startup, organizes a weeklong trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other: PowerPoint presentations and strategy sessions broken up by mandatory bonding on the slopes. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buyout offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. The storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, however, and a devastating avalanche leaves the group cut off from all access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn’t made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit.
As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further…one by one.
And because, as I mentioned, Ware gives us something different every time, her last novel is a Gothic mystery set in a smart house. Think of a Victorian home that was upgraded with every smart gadget imaginable and run through an app. Sounds like a fun home to be a nanny in, right? Except maybe not so much when weird stuff starts happening, including being watched through the app! And the kids aren’t easy at all. And the parents just leave to go out of town before you’ve situated yourself. And did I mention that Rowan, the last nanny, is writing this novel as a letter to a lawyer from jail as she tries to plead her innocence in the murder of a child…
I love the basis for this suspenseful novel, which asks the question: “Would you pretend to be someone else for an inheritance?” Ever since her mom’s death, Hal has been struggling in a lot of ways, including not being able to pay the rent after taking over her mom’s tarot card reading business. Enter a bad loan decision and an even worse decision to pretend to be the intended recipient of an inheritance letter that was mistakenly addressed to her. As she nervously travels to Mrs. Westaway’s mansion, fearful she won’t be able to trick the family, maybe she should instead be fearful of the family…
Related: The Best Locked-Room Mysteries
Here, Ware gives us a past-and-present story centered on a group of boarding school friends, now in their early thirties, who are reunited. Kate needs her three friends–Fatima (a Doctor, mother, wife), Isa (a mother of a six-month-old), and Thea (a casino dealer)–to drop everything and come to her. Why you may ask? Well, someone found a body while walking their dog. Now the women are lying to their families about going back for a reunion dinner when really they’re all trying to reconcile with the past and all their lies…
Imagine a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while invites you to her hen party (bachelorette party). That doesn’t sound so odd. Except add a cabin in the middle of nowhere and that your old friend is marrying your ex-boyfriend. What could go wrong? It’s a mystery/suspense in a house in the middle of the woods, so everything is going to go wrong! And did I mention it starts with a character in the hospital unable to remember what happened? In a Dark, Dark Wood is delicious fun.
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Jamie Canavés is a Book Riot contributing editor and Tailored Book Recommendations coordinator who always has a book in one hand. She writes the Unusual Suspects mystery newsletter, never says no to chocolate or ‘80s nostalgia, and spends way too much time asking her goat-dog “What’s in your mouth?!” Tweets: @Oh_Dinky.
