Minor spoilers ahead
Attention-grabbing, claustrophobically suspenseful and beautifully written, “The Woman in Cabin 10” was a surprisingly enjoyable read that has quickly shot to the top of my recommendation list with 4.5 stars.
Laura Blacklock (Lo) is a travel journalist still reeling from a traumatic burglary at the beginning of the novel, which has left her shaken and haunted by dreams of locked doors and grasping hands. Hoping to shake free of her fears, she accepts an assignment for a once-in-a-lifetime press trip on the Aurora: a small but lavish luxury yacht gliding through the misty Norwegian fjords.
When Lo hears a splash in the night and realizes one of the passengers may be missing, though no one else seems to have noticed, author Ruth Ware pulls us into Lo’s unraveling perspective. The result is a deliciously tense mystery where every shadow hides another question and escape is impossible miles from shore.
The guest list itself only deepens the intrigue, featuring a mix of journalists, socialites and very powerful players, all hosted by the enigmatic and immensely wealthy Lord Bullmer. His lavish hospitality seems designed to dazzle and draw you in, though behind that glittering surface and the dozen of loose smiles lurks the possibility of motives, cover-ups and lies. Each passenger becomes a potential suspect or victim, heightening the claustrophobic paranoia that drives the novel forward.
While at first I was skeptical of the plot and perhaps the characters’ sometimes frustratingly absent-minded decisions, I quickly fell head over heels for the story and atmosphere it takes its readers into. Ware masterfully spins suspense and dread, leaving you feeling as though you are grasping through the same fog surrounding the Aurora. Ruth Ware’s real name is Ruth Warburton. She chose the pen name when writing her works of fiction and is known to be a prolific writer of mystery and thriller novels. Often held to the level of Agatha Christie, she is compared to the Queen of Crime in the way she creates a sense of deep dread, psychological closeness, and claustrophobia in her isolated settings that allows you to experience the story in a very real way.
One of the strongest aspects of this book is the way it places readers into the mind of Lo as she feels like she is slowly unraveling at the seams, as no one else believes her story of the strange missing passenger. She begins to doubt the things she sees, and I, as a reader, begin to doubt her perspective as well. Right up until the turning point in the novel, pieces were slowly shown to the reader, to keep you convinced that neither you nor the trapped and desperate protagonist could really tell what was going on.
Lo is a very compelling heroine because of her deeply rooted flaws. She is anxious, irritable and constantly questioning her own perception of things. This vulnerability, instead of adding frustration as a reader, adds a sense of believability and grounding to the story in a way the “perfect” infallible protagonist never could. While surely Hercule Poirot, the world-famous Belgian detective created by mystery author Agatha Christie, could have solved this mystery faster, the main character of Lo brings you deep into the story and the psyche of a troubled and traumatized human, in a way that adds so much beautiful layering to the story.
In my opinion, the strongest feature of this book, and possibly Ware’s place of expertise, is atmosphere. We are taken from gloomy London to a beautiful luxury yacht. We are told about the glittering decorations, the gold adornments and the endless amenities for esteemed guests and passengers. However, as the story progresses, instead of finding comfort in those things, they are contrasted against the ever-present fog of the Norwegian Fjords and the growing sense of dread as you realize that Lo is trapped miles out at sea, with a missing body and a murderer. You can feel Lo’s terror as she is locked in her room, desperate, alone and slowly starving. Feel her paranoia as if it were the fog itself that is swallowing the boat.
Ware took a story we may have heard told in similar ways before, with Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile” and “Murder on the Orient Express,” and modernizes the formula by adding the complex layers that come with psychological depth and trauma, rather than simply external clues. One of my favorite lines from the book showcases this below.
“My friend Erin says we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we’re no good, that if we don’t make this promotion or ace that exam, we’ll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are. Maybe that’s true. Maybe mine just have louder voices.”
My main complaints lie in the underdeveloped relationship between Lo and her partner, Judah, back in London. It felt like there was an opportunity for emotional depth and weight to be created in their relationship that was lacking when I read it. As well as that, her motivation for wanting to go on this trip after just previously experiencing an extremely traumatic event where she was confined in a small space with an intruder felt off-putting to me and slightly unbelievable. However, for the most part, I could look past those issues.
This book is a beautiful slow burn of tension, mystery and complex topics like anxiety and PTSD. For anyone who wants to break into the genre of psychological thrillers, I would recommend this book as an excellent jumping-off point. To any veteran fans of the genre, I would still recommend this book because of the way it tackles deep themes and plays so heavily into the claustrophobic atmosphere of life trapped at sea. This book takes a somewhat classic mystery trope and adds a surprising twist to it that I am still thinking about while writing, which altogether has earned its 4.5 stars.