Ruth Ware’s new thriller “The Woman in Suite 11” is a sequel of sorts to her breakout hit of 2016, “The Woman in Cabin 10.” Will you enjoy it more if you read the first book? Yes. Or you can wait until the Netflix version of “The Woman in Cabin 10” starring Keira Knightley comes out this fall, and then read “The Woman in Suite 11.”
Most of the main characters who survived the first book return, led by Lo Blacklock, a decade older and raising a pair of sons in Brooklyn. She’s now happily married to Judah and she wrote a book called “Dark Waters” about her ordeal aboard the cruise ship Aurora (the plot of “Cabin 10”). She knows motherhood won’t last forever, and so when she’s presented with the opportunity to rekindle her travel writing career by visiting a luxury hotel in Geneva, she jumps at the chance. The hotel is owned by a reclusive European billionaire named Marcus Leidmann, and once Lo convinces the Financial Times she can deliver a profile, it’s off to Switzerland, where Ware throws the thriller switch and readers are taken on a ride across the European continent, eventually ending up in England for the story’s climax.
Lo’s voice is the best part of the book. She’s a mom now, so her sarcasm is tempered a little by maternal compassion, but she still reads like she’d be a great hang. Here she is looking out the window of a car as it drives through the countryside: “The villages were almost absurdly cute, in that Swiss cuckoo-clock style of ornate wooden fretwork and sparkling paint… I half expected a nun to come running out from the trees and break into song.”
It’s difficult to write much more about the plot without spoiling it, but Ware stays inside Lo’s head throughout, as she analyzes the intent of everyone’s actions and weighs her options. The tension builds steadily as she encounters various characters from the first book and begins to piece together what is happening. The story is peppered with multiple references and echoes back to “The Woman in Cabin 10,” another reason to read or watch it first before cracking open this new novel.
Once you do, you’ll settle into the rhythm of a Ware thriller. Many chapters end with snippets from websites or other sources that tease forward the plot, practically forcing you to turn the page and learn how it all happened.
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