Ruth Ware's One by One: A group of co-workers stuck in a remote chalet on a work retreat. What could go wrong?

Ruth Ware's One by One (forthcoming September 8, 2020)

This isn't one of Ruth Ware's best. It's the story of a group of rich and self-satisfied founders and employees from a cutesy start-up social media company who've traveled to an isolated chalet in the Swiss Alps. After a fight over control of the company, the shareholders and then employees start dying off one by one. It doesn't help that an avalanche buries the chalet, cuts off communication, and turns off power. As they get colder and colder, and the power drains from their phones, they are at least spared from having to watch more PowerPoint presentations about the company's finances. 

Ware uses a dual narrative structure to give the reader a split point of view from two outsiders - one the chalet host and the other an ex-employee who has been overlooked and dismissed as too weird her entire life. Both of them are concealing information, but we won't learn what it is until much later...

The basic premise is fine, but the novel feels very formulaic. As in all Ware novels, the narrators have a hidden past that isn't revealed until the end of the book, and the protagonist is injured and stuck alone with the killer, fleeing for their life. I can't quite describe it, but this one just felt flat. Maybe because none of the characters were particularly interesting? Maybe because it was clear really early on who the killer was? I don't know, but I didn't enjoy it as much as Ware's earlier work (except the Lying Game, which I couldn't finish).

Avalanche by Simon Desmarais (CC BY-SA 2.0)

If you're looking for a quick, suspenseful read, you'll enjoy this. It's just not nearly as complex and (is this weird to say?) thought-provoking as some of Ware's other works. I'm thinking of The Turn of the Key, which I thought was clever in its re-writing of The James's The Turn of the Screw and its meditation on smart tech. This novel is a perfectly serviceable distraction from the pandemic, unless you're (understandably) not in the mood for a book about a bunch of people stuck inside together.

I received an ARC of this novel from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.