Series: Detective Elin Warner Book 1
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Length: 400 pages
Audiobook Length: 11 hours and 58 minutes
First Published: 2021
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Rachael’s Review
Having taken time off from her job as a detective, Elin Warner agrees to attend a celebration of her estranged brother’s engagement. At a minimalist Swiss five-star hotel that used to be a sanatorium, Elin immediately feels on edge. When her brother’s fiancée disappears and a girl is murdered, all the guests begin to panic after a storm shuts off access to the remote hotel. Now, Elin must use all her skills to find out what is going on.
I know some reviewers are called this Reese Witherspoon book club pick overhyped, but I was completely captivated by this thriller. I adored the setting and would love to see it come to life someday in a film adaptation. I can see Elin being a hard-to-love narrator since her PTSD keeps her on edge and slightly apart, but she made a great unreliable narrator. Admittedly, the motive for the murders was a bit convoluted, but all I can say is that I thought it was the perfect quick winter thriller to sink into on a snowy weekend.
Publisher’s Description
You won’t want to leave. . . until you can’t.
Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.
An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin’s taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.
Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge–there’s something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.
Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she’s the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in. . .
About Sarah Pearse
Sarah Pearse is an English author of the novel The Sanatorium and The Retreat. She has degrees in literature and broadcast journalism. She currently lives in the UK. Visit the author’s website →