One by One

June 15, 2020
Set in a remote chalet at an exclusive French Alps resort, this tempestuous locked-room mystery from Ware (The Turn of the Key) centers on the 10-person corporate retreat of social media company Snoop. Snoop’s shareholders—cofounders and ex-lovers Topher St. Clair-Bridges and Eva van den Berg, coder Elliot Cross, comptroller Rik Adeyemi, and former secretary Liz Owens (all millennials)—bitterly disagree on whether to sell the business to investors or to seek additional funding and work toward an IPO. The group goes skiing to dispel tension, but then Eva fails to report for lunch. Before chalet employees Erin and Danny can arrange for a search, an avalanche eradicates the exit routes and knocks out power, internet, and phones. After another guest dies, the panicked survivors wonder whether there’s a murderer in their midst. Liz and Erin share the narrative, which Ware rapidly cycles to accelerate pace and amplify suspense. A somewhat contrived denouement does little to diminish the thrill of this claustrophobic, adrenaline-fueled cat-and-mouse game. Agatha Christie fans take note. Agent: Eve White, Eve White Literary (U.K.).

Starred review from June 1, 2020
Ware follows her acclaimed The Turn of the Key (2019) with another fine crime novel in the classic tradition. This one is especially timely, given that the terror of isolation is at its heart. The eight shareholding employees of a breakout tech start-up are attending a corporate retreat in a luxurious chalet high up in the French Alps. They are not truly alone, but they are trapped with their coworkers and not sure they can trust one another. Investors are anxious to buy into the start-up, but only half of the employees want to sell. Most significantly, they are cut off from the rest of the world because an avalanche has trapped them inside the chalet, and they have no ability to contact the outside world. The irony is rich. These are people more skilled at online expression than interpersonal communication. How many of them will still be alive by the time the rescue team arrives? Will their two hosts manage to feed them and keep them warm?and keep them from killing each other? And then one of them turns out to be not who she says she is. This is And Then There Were None rendered for the twenty-first century, and David Baldacci is spot-on in calling Ware The Agatha Christie of our generation. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Ware is one of the hottest traditional-mystery writers at the moment, and her sure-to-be-heavily-marketed latest will only turn up the heat.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2020
Our contemporary Agatha Christie offers up her version of And Then There Were None when 11 people are stranded in a ritzy ski chalet and begin dying one by one. By the numbers, the streaming app Snoop is devastatingly successful, and the company is on the cusp of a major buyout--if the shareholders vote to take this route. The founders, Topher and Eva, are torn, and the other three shareholders are being courted to choose sides. Most of the pressure falls on Liz, an awkward outlier when compared with the glamorous, beautiful people who head up the company. Though she doesn't work directly for Snoop anymore, Liz is included in the leadership retreat: It's her and eight other board members at a lush, remote French ski chalet for a little powder, a little pampering, and a little back-channel business. Erin and Danny, the caretakers of the chalet, notice tension among the members of the Snoop group from the beginning, but overall it seems like just another wealthy, entitled corporate gathering. The weather on top of the mountain grows increasingly dangerous, and when nine people go out to ski and only eight return, fear and suspicion begin to grow. Then there's an avalanche, and the chalet is cut off from contact with the outside world. Soon, another group member dies, apparently poisoned, and then another is murdered because of something she saw. The survivors must split up to search for help before there's no one left. Alternating chapters between Liz's and Erin's points of view, Ware does what she does best: Gives us a familiar locked-door mystery setup and lets the tension and suspicion marinate until they reach fever pitch. Another win for Ware and her adaptations of classic mystery traditions. The solution is maddeningly simple but the construction, simply masterful.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 1, 2020

Ware follows her homage to Henry James (The Turn of the Key) with one to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. A group of stakeholders in a digital startup, Snoop, have converged on a chalet in the Alps to discuss whether to accept a large buyout or wait, with the hopes of going public and making even more money. The deciding vote will be cast by Liz, a former assistant who received two shares in the business in exchange for a small loan early on and who left the company under mysterious circumstances. Chapters shift between the viewpoints of Liz and Erin, the chalet's housekeeper who is concealing her own connection to Snoop's magnetic cofounder. After the other cofounder disappears while skiing a dangerous run that was supposed to be closed, an avalanche strands the group at the chalet with no electricity, phone service, or internet connection. Then more people start dying. Ware's gifts for characterization, plot, and pacing shine here. The tension slowly ratchets up, culminating in a dangerous ski chase in the dark. VERDICT Ware's fans will devour this in a sitting, as will readers who love Lucy Foley's The Hunting Party or locked-room mysteries in general. [See Prepub Alert, 2/24/20.]--Stephanie Klose, Library Journal

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.