One by One

One by One
by Ruth Ware

Blurb:

Getting snowed in at a beautiful, rustic mountain chalet doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world, especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a cozy fire, and company to keep you warm. But what happens when that company is eight of your coworkers…and you can’t trust any of them?

When an off-site company retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration goes utterly wrong when an avalanche hits, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. Come Monday morning, how many members short will the team be?

My Reaction:

Three stars out of five, from me.    

The title and something I read promoting this novel made me think it would be more along the lines of Christie's And Then There Were None, but it's not as compelling, dark, and terrifying as that.  Unlike some people, I didn't feel immediately certain of the murderer's identity, so that's a positive-- but unfortunately it was a little of a disappointment when it was revealed.  Not how I was hoping it would go.

On the whole, it was okay.  I didn't like most of the characters, and not just the ones you're supposed to hold in disdain.  I didn't particularly care for most of the ones that you are meant to like, so... ~shrug~  Meh.  

I could've done without a few political/"woke" references toward the end.  We were doing so well for most of the book, but then at the end, I guess the author just couldn't help herself.  It wasn't necessary.  Didn't add anything to the story.  Another disappointment.  

This last bit's a spoiler, so consider yourself warned...
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I didn't like the way that we're obviously supposed to applaud Erin's excessive sensitivity when it comes to the dead characters, when to me she's just being ridiculous.  She's in a life-or-death situation where accessing a phone is of the utmost importance, and yet she makes a huge deal about how awful she feels about using (the dead) Elliot's thumb in order to unlock his phone.  ...When he was alive, Elliot seemed pretty practical.  I really don't think he'd mind Erin touching his hand after his death.  It's not as though she were defiling his body!  

(Strange, though, how she had to work so hard to get the thumbprint to work, but Liz seems to have no such difficulty.  Speaking of Liz, the fact that she doesn't think twice about using Elliot's thumb is clearly supposed to be a meaningful moment of contrast between psychopath Liz and caring healer Erin.  Ugh.)

There's a similar moment later in the book, when Erin has to quickly and quietly cobble together a skiing outfit from whatever's available in the locker room.  She looks down and realizes she's wearing clothes belonging to another dead character.  "The thought that I'm literally stepping into a dead girl's clothes makes my stomach lurch with guilt."  Oh, good grief!  You're borrowing her clothes in a desperate attempt to save your life.  I'm sure she'd have told you to take them with her blessing.  It's not as though you're idly searching through her suitcase and stealing whatever clothes take your fancy.  Such a stupid thing to waste time thinking about.  (And such a stupid thing to include in the novel.)  

There are other quibbles (how many sleeping pills does it really take to kill someone, for instance, how did Liz know which jacket Eva would wearing, considering that she's wealthy enough that she might have more than one, and so on)... But that's enough. 



END
SPOILERS

It was entertaining in parts, and a nice enough way to pass some time, if you enjoy the genre.  

The Quilters Push Back

The Quilters Push Back
(Miranda Hathaway Adventures #7)

by Mary Devlin Lynch, Debbie Devlin Zook, and Beth Devlin-Keune

Blurb:

Not even Cutler Pennsylvania is immune from the serious drug epidemic spreading across the nation. When local kids started dying, Cutler Quilt Guild Number One jumped into action. Using every skill they have from sewing to surveillance, they are determined to find the drug dealers and push them out. It might be time for Harriet to dust off her taser!

My Reaction:

(This was another 372-Pages podcast/book club selection.  Shared read-aloud with Donald!)

I was excited that the podcast hosts chose a quilting-themed series for their first "cozy mystery", because, well, I'm a quilter!  Actually, I still feel a little strange calling myself a quilter, but I have a closet full of fabric, I own a mid-arm quilting machine, and I guess I've been doing it long enough now that it's not a lie, even though it still feels weird, like some craft-world version of "stolen valor"! I'm fine saying "I quilt", but calling myself "a quilter" seems more formal-- and contestable.  "You can't really call yourself a quilter until you've completed 50 quilts, mastered the scant quarter-inch seam, and publicly chastized someone for calling a quilt a 'blanket'!"

I've read a few cozy mysteries in the past, before getting bored because I didn't really enjoy them.  Those were about crochet and other niche interests; this was my first time reading a quilting-themed novel.  To call it "quilt-themed" is quite a stretch, to be honest.  There is very little quilting in the story.  (Spoiler alert!  We went back and read the first book and half of the series, too, while we waited between podcast episodes, and those also had precious little quilting or quilting talk in them-- but at least there was more of an effort, in the first one.) 

I realize that even quilters might not enjoy reading a book with too much actual quilting as the focus of the story, but there was so little quilting here that it felt pointless to make it part of a quiltilng series.  The group could easily have been focused on nearly any other hobby.  All you'd have to do would be to change the name of the group (or guild, in this instance) and have them make something other than pillows for their fundraiser-- jewelry, crochet potholders, knitted hats, baked goods, jam, BBQ ribs, etc.   (Come to think of it, those pillows were more about embroidery than quilting, anyway!  And they did an almost identical fundraiser in the first book of the series!!)  

Anyway... This wasn't particularly well-written (for a variety of reasons), but it was unintentionally hilarious at times.  Donald loved all the times that "everyone" in a group simultaneously performed various actions (laughing, smiling, cheering, nodding-- lots of nodding).  Oh, and this: "Gabe snapped pictures as quietly as he could with the window rolled down."  The mental image of someone trying to take photos "quietly"!  Photography isn't typically all that noisy-- especially these days, with digital cameras and phone cameras-- and there's not much you can do to make it even quieter.  Then there's the way "bad girls" are described (their hair, clothes, and make-up), the utter lack of undertstanding of how the legal system works, and a general air of naiveté.  

This hasn't inspired me to seek out more cozy mysteries.  Maybe there are some genuinely good, interesting, well-written series out there, but I'm not in any hurry to start searching for them, right now.

Incarnate

Incarnate

by Ramsey Campbell

Blurb:

Five people are brought from London to participate in a controlled experiment studying prophetic dreaming. But the results are so ominous that the program is cut short.

Now a monstrous presence is in the subjects' lives, a creature created by their group dream eleven years ago, drawing them inexorably into its awful vortex.

My Reaction:

I'm disappointed!  This could have been so much better.  The basic idea of the book has potential, but it's far too long, lacks focus, and fails to deliver. 

So much of the book crawls at a snail's pace, and much of it is inconsequential or repetitious.  There's a powerful sensation of waiting for something, anything to happen.  Everything feels nebulous in this novel, soft-focus and hazy.  I thought that perhaps this was intentional and specific to this novel, given that it is about dreams.  Perhaps the author was trying to evoke a dreamlike atmosphere, because there are definitely times when he makes the reader question what is and isn't actually happening.  However, I've since read a review or two that indicates that this is simply the author's typical writing style.  (Apparently he's a master of the short story, but I'm not sure I've ever read anything of his before this.  I'd look for a short story before I'd venture to try another of his novels.)

I kept hoping that things would come together, but when the book draws to a close, it's more of a headscratcher than a satisfying conclusion.  I want things spelled out in a bit more detail than that.  A little too facile, and a little less impressive than I'd hoped.  Very disappointing!  



SPOILERS FOLLOW!

So much of the book was frustrating to read!  I can only take so much of hating Eve (and Helen/Nell, to be honest).  I grew weary of watching the blob-thing tormenting poor Geoffrey.  (Incidentally, the man must've been a saint to put up with the infuriating Joyce for so many years!)  And don't even get me started on Danny Swain.  (Yuck!)  In the end, it felt like a whole lot of frustration for nothing, because the ending was so unrewarding.  Blah.  

I'm also annoyed that two of the characters I actually liked (Susan and Geoffrey) died/were lost in the dream.  One more layer of disappointment!

At least it's done.  I can't wait to read something different, after that long slog!