Lo Blacklock, a travel journalist, gets a plum assignment covering the maiden voyage of a luxury cruise ship with only 10 cabins. She's put in cabin number nine and has a brief encounter on her first day with the guest in the one next door.
Late that night, Lo hears a scream and a huge splash, as if a body went overboard. She runs outside but sees nothing on the adjacent balcony--except a "smear of something dark and oily. A smear that looked a lot like blood." When the head of security arrives and goes next door with her, they find nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, they find nothing at all; the cabin is empty. The security officer informs Lo that the intended guest had backed out of the cruise at the last minute.
Lo takes it upon herself to investigate, but no one on the ship recognizes her description of the mystery woman, nor do they fully believe her account. Then she starts receiving threatening messages telling her to stop looking for the woman. Is she now in danger of being disappeared?
Following In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware's The Woman in Cabin 10 is another psychological thriller with shades of Agatha Christie, featuring a confined location where one of the people gathered must be the murderer, however impossible that may seem. Suspension of disbelief is required for some plot revelations, and Lo is a maddening character who makes unwise choices, but Ware's propulsive prose keeps readers on the hook and refuses to let anyone off until all has been revealed. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd