Zero Days by Ruth Ware is a fast paced action-packed read. I’ve read a few of Ware’s books now and know she has a big fan base. She’ll also be attending the crime writing festival I’m going to next month in England so this is a timely read. Although I kinda felt it was pretty obvious whodunnit here, the why was certainly unexpected and Ware also complicates the who with some murky shadow-lurking types.
It’s no secret that I’m a massive fan of Agatha Christie – in particular all-things-Miss Marple who is my favourite Christie crime-solver (followed by Poirot and very distantly by the Beresfords). I’ve written before also about my favourite Miss Marple actress who (despite my usual lack of visual-ness) I ‘picture’ when I think of Miss Marple.
Anyhoo, like everything it seems… everything old is new again and several well-known authors have contributed to an anthology featuring my very favourite female detective.
The It Girl by Ruth Ware is an absorbing read. It unfolds in the past and present, both via our narrator Hannah. In the past she’s starting out at Oxford University, climbing out of her public school past and and navigating the quagmire that is university life – grappling with study and new friends (which I remember as if it wasn’t 35 years ago 🙄 ). And in the present, she’s married, living in Edinburgh and working in a bookshop – never having graduated from university.
Ware doesn’t keep us guessing why as the book opens with Hannah finding the body of her best friend and room-mate April but we’re then taken back to their meeting and the weeks and months leading up to April’s murder.
Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood was met with much adoration and acclaim. I still haven’t read it but leapt at the chance to read her second novel, The Woman in Cabin 10, and was – I must admit – a tad disappointed.
The premise of her latest, The Turn of the Key, sounded interesting however, though I was a little worried when there was talk of ghosts and haunted houses as I’m not a fan of the fantasy genre, however this didn’t really go in that direction and was sufficiently gripping that I easily read it in a sitting.
I’d had this book on my iPad to read for a long time before its publication date. I’d not heard of author Ruth Ware before, but many tell me they’ve read her previous book – In a Dark, Dark Wood – and enjoyed it a lot.
I liked The Woman in Cabin 10. It offered up a flawed lead character who may, or may not, be trustworthy as a narrator and a whodunnit of sorts.
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