Review | One By One by Ruth Ware

High up in a ski resort on the French Alps, a group of directors and employees of the music app Snoop are gathered to decide the future of the company. A buyout is on offer, and the group is split on the decision. Worse, they find themselves stuck after a disastrous avalanche hit the resort. No power, no communication, and no way to get help. They soon realise that one of their team members is missing. But is it an accident, or murder? Can they trust each other as they get through the worst of the snow storm, or is there a murderer amongst them?

It gives me a strange feeling if I think about it too much – a kind of claustrophobia that’s at odds with the wide open vistas from the chalet. It’s not just the snow, it’s a hundredweight of unwelcome memories bearing down on me. 

One By One is a locked room mystery, one of my favourite tropes ever! The setting of a cabin high up in the snowy French Alps is atmospheric, descriptive and adds to the sense of danger. I love that the characters are co-workers instead of family and friends. There aren’t enough thrillers about the dark side of working relationships! There’s so much potential for juicy drama, and this book employs them to a certain extent. There are betrayals, financial disputes, hidden agendas, affairs, and all the uncomfortable feelings that comes with working with people you don’t particularly like. Add an avalanche, no means to call for help, and you get a dangerous situation ready to ignite.

The characters are a group of board members and employees working in a fictional music app company called Snoop. The company has received an offer for a buyout and they are deciding what to do about it. The group is split between those who wants to accept the buyout for its financial rewards and those who wants to continue on even with Snoop’s declining financial status. I’m fascinated by stories about the tech industry so I really enjoyed this aspect. It so happens that I just watched the documentary The Social Dilemma, and I thought the characters feel believable, even if not entirely likable. The POVs are from Liz, a former employee at Snoop, and Erin, a worker at the resort chalet where the group is staying. I really liked Erin, and I thought her background is interwoven cleverly with the situation. Liz is more of an enigma, but she holds important information that could potentially affect the fate of Snoop.

While I enjoyed the setting and the characters, I thought the mystery is too predictable. I guessed the perpetrator halfway through the book. I was waiting for a reveal or something surprising in the plot, but the story just continues on familiar grounds. The characters also make silly mistakes which kind of annoyed me and took me out. This is less a thriller and more about characters struggling with trauma and resorting to extreme measures. The ending is pretty good in retrospect but I wish there’s more originality in terms of the puzzle itself.

Overall, One By One is an enjoyable read, and will appeal to fans of locked room mysteries and tech industry drama.

I received a digital review copy from the publisher and Netgalley for review purposes.

About the author: Ruth Ware

Photo by Yann Allegre