A
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
As many of you know, psychological thrillers featuring kickass ladies are just about my favorite thing ever, and when I got my grabby little hands on The Woman in Cabin 10 I was super excited. It’s a creepy locked room mystery with an amazing narrator, a couple of good red herrings, and lot of delicious twists. The mystery maintains a good pace too, and once I started reading I had to finish that same day. It would have been a one-sitting book except I started it before work and had to, you know, actually show up.
It’s also a big ‘ol middle finger to gaslighting and to dismissing women with anxiety or depression as “crazy” or untrustworthy, and let me tell you, I loved that so much.
Our intrepid narrator/sleuth is Lo Blacklock, a writer for a high-end travel magazine, Velocity. When her boss is laid up with a complicated pregnancy, Lo gets to step in and go on a once-in-a-lifetime luxury cruise aboard The Aurora. This isn’t a city-at-sea type of cruise, oh no: it’s a small luxury boat with only ten cabins intended to cater to the wealthy traveler. Departing from England and sailing to Scandinavia, it’s all about designer meals, epic spa treatments and views of fjords and the northern lights. This is a cruise I want to go on (well, up until the murder part).
Lo needs to cover this assignment as it’s a huge boost to her career, but she’s struggling. Immediately before the cruise her flat was robbed, while she was in it, and understandably she’s not sleeping well. So she’s sleep deprived, dealing with some serious anxiety, and she may have broken up with her boyfriend right before she left. The maiden voyage of The Aurora is devoted to journalists and wealthy investors, so it’s the sort of networking opportunity that could spell big things for Lo which is why she pulls on her big girl pants and shows up.
The first night of the cruise Lo realizes she’s forgotten her mascara, so she knocks on the cabin door next to her (the titular Cabin 10) and a young woman answers. She gives Lo some mascara–everyone has smoky eyes, it’s all good. That night Lo finally falls asleep only to be woken up by a scream and a splash. She runs to the balcony and thinks she sees someone slipping under the water. When she cranes her head around the privacy barrier between their balconies, she swears she sees blood on the railing outside cabin ten.
When security comes they are baffled because cabin ten was empty–they even show her the unprepared room. The man who was supposed to stay there was an investor who backed out last minute. Also there’s no blood on the railing. In an effort to allay her fears they introduce her to all the female crew (she’s met the guests) to see if one of them was the woman she saw earlier in the day. Of course none of them match up. Lo is dismissed, but she’s firm in her conviction that what she saw was real.
This book deals a lot with gaslighting, and I loved that so much. For those unfamiliar with the term, gaslighting is when someone is manipulated into doubting their memory or experience, and it’s a thing that happens to women when they are legitimately distressed about something and then told that distress is not valid.
Here’s Lo speaking to the head of security:
“Lo, then. I have spoken to the captain. None of the staff are missing, we are quite certain of that now. We’ve also spoken to all the staff and none of them saw anything suspicious about that cabin, all of which leads to the conclusion–”
“Hey,” I interrupted, hotly, as if somehow preventing him from saying the words would affect the conclusion the captain had come to.
“Miss Blacklock–”
“No. No, you don’t get to do this.”
“Don’t get to do what?”
“Call me ‘Miss Blacklock’ one minute, tell me you respect my concerns and I’m a valued passenger blah blah blah, and then the next minute brush me off like a hysterical female who didn’t see what she saw.”
“I don’t–” he started, but I cut him off, too angry to listen.
“You can’t have it both ways. Either you believe me or–Oh, no, wait!” I stopped in my tracks, unable to believe I hadn’t thought of it before. “What about CCTV? Don’t you have some kind of security system?”
“Miss Blacklock–”
“You could check the tapes of the corridor. The girl will be on there–she must be!”
“Miss Blacklock,” he said more loudly, “I have spoken to Mr. Howard.”
“What?”
“I have spoken to Mr. Howard,” he said, more wearily. “Ben Howard.”
“So?” I said, but my heart was thumping fast. “What can Ben possibly know about this?”
“His cabin is on the other side of the empty one, I went to see him, to find out if he could have heard anything, if he could corroborate your account of a splash.”
“He wasn’t there,” I said. “He was playing poker.”
“I know that. But he told me…” Nilsson trailed off.
Oh, Ben, I though, and there was a sinking sensation in my stomach. Ben, you traitor. What have you done?
I knew what he’d said. I knew it from Nilsson’s face, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.
“Yes?” I said, through gritted teeth. I was going to force him to do this properly. He was going to have to spell this out, one excruciating syllable at a time.
“He told me about the man in your flat. The burglar.”
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“It, um–” He coughed and folded first his arms, then his legs. The picture of a man his size, perched uncomfortably on a sofa, trying to efface himself into nothing, was almost ludicrously comic. I said nothing. The sensation of watching him squirm was almost exquisite. You know, I thought viciously, you know what a shit you’re being.
“Mr. Howard tells me that you, er, you haven’t been sleeping well, since the, er, break-in,” he managed.
I said nothing. I sat there cold and hard with rage against Nilsson, but mostly against Ben Howard. That was the last time I confided in him. Would I never learn?
“And then there is the alcohol,” he said. His fair, crumpled face was unhappy. “It, um… it doesn’t mix well with…”
He trailed off. His head turned towards the bathroom door, to the pathetic pile of personal belongings.
“With what?” I said, my voice low and hard and totally unlike my own. Nilsson raised his eyes to the ceiling, his discomfort radiating through the room.
“With…antidepressants,” he said, his voice almost a whisper, and his gaze flicked again, to the crumpled, half-used packet of pills beside the sink, and then back to me, every inch of him apologetic.
But the words were said. They could not be unsaid, and we both knew it.
I sat, saying nothing, but my cheeks were burning as if I’d been slapped. So this was it. Ben Howard really had told him everything, the little shit. A few minutes, he’d talked to Nilsson. One conversation, and in that time he’d not only failed to support my story–he’d spilled every detail of my biography that he had to hand, and made me look like an unreliable, chemically imbalanced neurotic in the processes.
Yes. Yes, I take antidepressants. So what?
No matter that I’ve been taking–and drinking–those pills for years. No matter that I had anxiety attacks, not delusions.
But even if I’d had full-blown psychosis, that didn’t detract from the fact that pills or no pills, I saw what I saw.
You can’t see me, but I’m holding up a lighter here. The scene goes on with Lo bitching out Nilsson for making false assumptions and for not doing his job properly. It. Is. Glorious.
There is this awful thing that happens to people who suffer from anxiety disorders or depression. When I went through my years of trying to get fibro diagnosed, my doctors kept falsely pointing to the generalized anxiety disorder I’d had since I was a child (and been medicated for since I was a teen) as the cause of my chronic and often debilitating pain. Or rather the cause of me thinking I was in pain when I wasn’t. When I finally saw a specialist and got diagnosed, he told me this was a common thing for a lot of his patients.
Here’s the thing–depression and anxiety make your brain lie to you. It tells you that you aren’t good enough or strong enough to cope or that things are worse than they really are. It does not make you think you saw someone being murdered when you didn’t. Anxiety and depression are very common mental illnesses and they don’t typically cause hallucinations–it’s a difficulty in coping with reality due to a chemical imbalance, not an inability to tell what that reality actually is, and not a deficit of character or judgement.
My anxiety made it difficult for me socialize sometimes or to cope with what might be considered a normal amount of stress. It doesn’t make me untrustworthy or delusional or in any way less lucid than anyone else. If anything, anxiety/depression might make a sufferer better at examining their emotional state and how it relates to events. Like, I know when I cry at a Proctor & Gamble commercial during my period that it’s because my hormones are wonky–I don’t suddenly assume P&G commercials got really sad.
Nilsson acts like Lo’s sleeplessness and antidepressants mean that Lo can’t be trusted to differentiate reality from fantasy, and the fact that she calls him on it is perfect. This is a common theme in mysteries/ thrillers/ horror fiction–you must be crazy! There’s not really a killer/ monster/ alien/ bigfoot hanging out here! Ooops I just got my face eaten, guess you were right. The thing is, most heroines don’t deal with their doubters are directly or forcefully as Lo.
As the novel progresses Lo keeps pushing to find out who was killed and who the killer is, and clearly someone is not happy with her. Threatening messages are left for her. Potential evidence is destroyed. The more this escalates the more exhausted Lo becomes, but she never really questions her own sanity. There are moments in this book that would have broken me, but Lo perseveres.
If you want to read this book, but are leery, The Woman in Cabin 10 isn’t a particularly gory or scary mystery. It’s very suspenseful, and there is real danger at times, but I don’t think it’s nightmare-inducing. It is incredibly smart, well paced and well-plotted. Plus, Ruth Ware does a great job of creating this claustrophobic, moody atmosphere that enhances everything about the suspense.
The Woman in Cabin 10 would get an A from me based on the merits of the mystery alone–the fact that it takes a long, hard look at gaslighting and declares “fuck you,” is just a wonderful added bonus. I know many SBTB readers love mysteries and thrillers, or know someone who does, so if that’s you, I cannot recommend this book enough.
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Thanks!
Thanks for this! I love a good suspense novel, and I’ll check it out.
Thanks for this: ”…depression and anxiety make your brain lie to you. It tells you that you aren’t good enough or strong enough to cope or that things are worse than they really are. It does not make you think you saw someone being murdered when you didn’t.” My lighter is raised with yours.
I need to read this. So does one of my kids, who has bi-polar disorder and knows exactly how that can cause people to diminish you. Thanks for this.
I’m in. Reminds me a bit of The Lady Vanishes. Thanks for the review.
I loved it! Very DuMaurier in mood–so cold and creepy.
I am afraid to say any more about the plot, for fear of spoilers, but all of the twists and turns really kept me turning the pages. I galloped through it so fast; now I want to do a re-read to see if I can spot the clues I missed.
I must admit that it took me a bit to warm up to Lo–but by the time the scene you describe was over, I was saying “you go, Lo” and looking for Ben so that I could punch him (the self-serving rat).
Thanks! This sounds amazing!!!
What a fantastically well written review- so much so that I didn’t want to stop reading it before I could order the actual book; I just kept blindly pat-patting my hand on my desk until it finally touched on my kindle. Side note- Ruth Ware also wrote ‘In a Dark Dark Wood’- a mystery set in a weekend bachelorette party. She’s a gripping writer all around.
I’m especially interested because of the “fuck you” declaration. That seems to fit my mood these days. Great review.
The way you describe this book reminds me of the gothic romances that Mary Stewart wrote (and I loved). The Ivy Tree comes to mind.
Great review and the excerpt has led to this book being added to an already ridiculously long TBR list 😉
This review has my attention, and so do the comments invoking du Maurier and Stewart. Suspenseful gothic-like mystery? SIGN ME UP.
This has been on my wish list ever since it popped up on my Amazon reccies. I think I’m going to have to start using the library more so I don’t have to keep waiting for sales.
I loved the review, but I’m so disturbed about the mascara bit that I can barely think of anything else. Who borrows mascara? Was it (gasp) an already opened/partially used tube? Bacteria alert! Was it a new tube? That stuff is expensive. Who goes around with extra tubes just so they can give them away to strangers? And was it the right color? Type? Waterproof or not? I’m overwhelmed with questions. I obviously have problems. I hope I don’t witness a crime now.
Susan, that was my concern too! Don’t share mascara!!! Who does that? You can borrow my toothpaste or shampoo with no problems, even lipstick I’d be ok with even though, arguably, it has the potential to spread more diseases, but mascara is just plain weird.
Agree with the above–only a true weirdo would borrow (or lend) mascara. I’m excited to check this one out. I thought the heroine of Ware’s first book was a bit TSTL. Lo sounds like a big improvement. 🙂
This book actually made me not want to take a cruise. Ever. Ware did a great job of creating this claustrophobic atmosphere, the feeling of complete isolation when you are on a ship in the MIDDLE OF AN OCEAN, and that fear when going below the waterline of that enormous amount of pressure the water is putting on the structural integrity of the ship. Plus (!) how easily a crime can be committed on a ship with no one realizing it! Yes, very good book.
Have to agree with JennyME about Ware’s first book, IN A DARK, DARK WOOD, where (possible spoilers) the villain was obvious from the moment they (using plural pronoun to avoid gender reference) appeared, the heroine’s decisions seemed to exist to further the plot as opposed to developing organically from her personality, and there was so much “busyness” involving cell phones, texting, and losing service it became exhausting trying to keep up. Otoh, Ware did a good job of evoking the atmosphere of being alone and isolated, so I’ll probably give CABIN 10 a try.
This isn’t the kind of book i normally read but, please, please tell me that Lo nut-punches Ben and I’ll read it.
I was hesitant to pick this up after reading In a Dark, Dark Wood, which got wonderful reviews and which I thought was mediocre. But the excerpt included here and your love for it makes me want to give Ware another try. Thanks for the review!
Please someone tell me what “Tiggers bounce” means…I don’t get it..
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I have no idea what tiggers bounce means.
SALLIE,
I think I figured it out. It’s a message from Carrie because she had given her the Winnie the Poo Book. 😉
The one thing that caught my eye while reading GR reviews of this book was the amount of people who said how “unlike” Lo was. I kept that in the back of my mind as I began the book. After all, there are lots of acerbic/unlikable male protags in many mystery/suspense novels.
One of the things I liked is how Lo’s character developed and grew. I was legit cheering for her after the big twist happened.
Another thing was how the book played with the unreliable narrator vis a vis gaslighting.
I do feel compelled to say that Lo was a terrible amateur detective. But I was OK with that since she did have skills or training to suss out criminals.
IIRC, I gave it 3 stars or the equivalent of a B-/C+.
*since she DIDN’T have the skills.
I’m less than half way through so don’t have any spoilers to leak. I just wanted to say I hadn’t read any reviews before I started the book so had no idea Lo would be SO annoying. It took less than 10 pages for her to drive me nuts! Right now I’d give the book one star, but am continuing reading.
I may love your review more than the book itself! Holding up a lighter to your words!
I am halfway through and am making myself finish because I friend gave me the book as a gift. I find Lo to be a very unsympathetic character. It’s hard to push forward when you don’t rally like the narrator. I’m tired of the unreliable narrator who abuses alcohol, and is dealing with all sorts of mental crises (I.e. the Girl on the Train). But, onward I go!
Annoying book. The main character was really unlikable and bitchy, and i figured out the plot twist almost immediately- so easy to impersonate a bald cancer patient by putting on scarves or wigs. Not extremely well written. The only thing i did like was the luxurious setting which was absolutely wasted on Lo. You can be sure that had i been in her place, i wouldnt have run around in fruitless circles trying to solve a minor mystery but would have milked every minute of the cruise! Also annoying rhat she didnt end up doing one bit of the work that she was hired to do.
Sorry Elyse, I have to disagree with you on this one. I just finished it and I would give it 2 stars at the most (or a C-) My main problem with the story was the character of Lo; I know characters don’t need to be “likeable” to be good, but to echo the words of other commenters, it does make it difficult to rally behind. Also, for a so-called professional writer, she came across as someone who didn’t know how to do their job, let alone ask questions of the people she was interviewing. The ending also bugged me, I found it to be anti-climatic, and an odd combination of “rushed” as well as “drawn-out”. I felt that the author was going back and forth between how she wanted the book to end and couldn’t really make up her mind.
I have read the book once and am thumbing through the second time. I am having problems with the body count (3?) and who was/was not who….
I am 14 chapters in and this lady is driving me up the wall. I want to slap her. Sorry. I don’t think I have patients for this.
feminist bitch LOL
Did I miss something regarding the break in at her house? Did we ever find out who that was or why?
Finally finished this tonight. I HATED Lo! An up and coming travel journalist gets the break of a lifetime and a luxury cruise on a small but billion dollar cruise ship – but does she prepare – no. Does she read the travel materials for this maiden voyage – no. Does she even look at the itinerary of what will happen in the next few days – no. Does she take notes, set up appointments, look for inter views, shmooze – no, no, no, no. Does she drink? Not just the champagne provided to the guests, but copious amounts of gin and whiskey as well, all while being on prescription anxiety drugs? Yes.
All this sets the story up with an unbelievable and unreliable narrator.
As to the break in – not another word.
Some clever twists and dramatic turns, but iI need to stop reading “The Woman…” books. My last was The Woman in the Window – also a novel with an unreliable female narrator who drank way too much while taking prescription drugs that did not mix with alcohol.
Very sorry to vent, but I just finished two really bad and depressing books, came across this site for the first time by accident and couldn’t let it go…..
I thought the story was good but I don’t know how I got past the countless references to nausea, claustrophobia and sinking fear. Enough is enough is enough, already!!!
I really enjoyed the book!! It kept me guessing the whole time. I recommend it!