The Woman in Suite 11, Ruth Ware, author; Imogen Church, narrator
Ruth Ware has written a sequel to her best seller The Woman in Cabin 10. Many of the characters have returned in this book, chief among them is Carrie, and the love/hate relationship between Laura/Lo Blacklock and Carrie continues. However, where the first book was an edge of the seat, page turning experience, this was a chore to get through. Laura Blacklock has become a whiny, cursing, naïve woman who makes a wrong decision at every opportunity. She has not matured over the last decade, although she has married and now has two children.
When she is invited to a travel conference at a new hotel in Switzerland, by the Leidmann Group, she goes off to Europe hoping to interview Marcus Leidmann, the patriarch, a man with a Howard Hughes reputation for reclusiveness. She is only just returning to the world of travel journalism and the Financial Times has offered her a byline if she can score the interview and produce a worthwhile piece. She is hoping to restart her career. She leaves her husband Judah in charge of her two small children, Eli and Teddy, and reenters the corporate world with some trepidation, but also excitement.
Once in Switzerland at the Hotel du Lac, she discovers many of the passengers from the Aurora Borealis are also there. She was almost killed on that ship, about a decade ago, and her memories are still alive and well, causing her to have violent nightmares and to require medication. Then, surprise, surprise, she is summoned to Marcus Leidmann’s suite and discovers Carrie is there. She agrees to help Carrie escape from the clutches of Marcus Leidmann, because after Carrie almost got her killed so many years ago, she had come back to ultimately save her life. Carrie now confesses that she has been with Marcus for years and has been forced to do things that are horrible and has no way out without her help. He is powerful and has threatened her if she leaves him. Having dual citizenship allows Lo to have two passports, one of which she loans to Carrie. Carrie has thought it all out, and soon, they both flee the hotel. The fact that Lo realizes it is a foolish and dangerous thing to do, but rationalizes it to herself, does not excuse her foolish complicity. It stretches credibility to believe that a woman who has been a successful journalist, who already survived an attempt on her life brought on by the very Carrie, would endanger her own life again, now as a mother and wife, with a scheme designed by Carrie that was supposed to give her plausible deniability and keep her safe. To help Carrie escape from the clutches of Marcus Leidmann, she could wind up in danger again or in prison herself. Carrie is already wanted for murder and has been hiding since their last encounter.
One must suspend disbelief in order to believe that Lo could be that naïve and/or incompetent. One has to suspend disbelief for most of the events that follow. This book is not an edge of the seat thriller at all. This book is a painful, unsatisfying effort that forces the reader to endure constant cursing (I lost count of how many times the “F” word was used in some form by so many of the characters), constant whining, apologies that fall on ears that should be deaf, but aren’t, and immature and thoughtless responses to dangerous and impossible situations that seem to come up at every turn.
This book is overly dramatic, overly emotional, repetitive and unrealistic. After about 16 hours of listening, I realized that I should have stopped early on, as I wanted to, but I hoped it would improve. Unfortunately, it got more outrageous, and for me, it had few redeeming features other than the narrator who was superb, though she too often over emoted because of the nature of the verbiage. This is billed as book two, and obviously, the door seems to have been left open for another to follow. Although I really eagerly awaited this one, I am not sure that the next one will tempt me. The characters were caricatures of themselves!