The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

“But I was almost certain—almost completely certain—that she was the woman in cabin 10.” 

As a journalist for a travel magazine, Lo Blacklock gets the opportunity of a lifetime, to set sail on the maiden voyage of a new luxury cruise. The ship itself is small in size with only a handful of cabins and its guests consist of the rich and influential. While initially, the cruise is the utmost in comfort, things take a turn when one night Lo is woken up by a disturbance in the cabin next door, and witnesses what she believes is a woman going overboard. However, when she raises the alarm she learns that the cabin next door is unoccupied and all on board have been accounted for.

As a fan of mysteries, the premise of this novel captured my attention immediately. It has been compared to the Agatha Christie style of mystery, and it is in the way it consists of a room full of suspects in an isolated location and attempts to work out who the culprit is. This is more or less part of the middle portion of the story, which I found to be quite interesting and page-turning. However, there are a number of aspects that just did not work for me and which made the overall story feel jumbled rather than as a well pieced together puzzle. For one, the main character is completely insufferable, with actions, choices, and behaviour that are bizarre and ridiculous. There are a number of things that happen that are not explained or tie in at the end, with the mystery being solved and the truth revealed much earlier than expected, and I’m not quite sure I even understand what the ending really was. The premise, the setup, and the pacing of the novel is well done and there are portions of the story that are intriguing, however the pieces just did not fall into place for me with this one.