Ok, I know Spring is sprung and we’re all ready for flowers, more daylight, and sunnier days, but I’m taking one last look back at winter with this trio of recent suspense novels that find characters trapped in remote, snowy mountain lodges in the Alps.
One by One by Ruth Ware
The eight shareholding employees of a tech start-up gather at a high-end ski chalet in the French Alps to discuss the contentious topic of opening their company to investors. But soon after arrival, one in their party goes missing on the slopes, and soon an avalanche has trapped the group and the two chalet staff inside with no phone access, no wifi, and no electricity. Tensions and tempers flare, until one by one other members of the group disappear into the snow or are found dead in their rooms. Told from the perspective of Liz, a former employee who holds the linchpin vote; and Erin, the chalet hostess and ski guide hiding her own secrets.
The Sanatorium by Sarah Pears
Elin, estranged from her brother Isaac, has nonetheless gone with her fiancée Will to celebrate Isaac’s engagement at Le Sommet, a former tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps renovated into a minimalist hotel. A detective back in the UK, Elin arrives already unsettled, on leave after her last case left her injured and questioning her judgement, an uneasiness intensified by the starkness and history of the hotel. When both Isaac’s fiancée and a staff member go missing, and an avalanche traps the few remaining guests and staff in the hotel, cut off from local police assistance, Elin starts digging but finds much more than she bargained for.
