Let me cut to the chase: Shari Lapena basically wrote an Agatha Christie novel and set it in the Catskills. I got that same classic mystery vibe from Blue Cross, though that one takes a different approach to the whodunit formula. Snowbound mountain lodge, guests getting picked off one by one, everyone's a suspect. It's not reinventing the wheel, but sometimes you don't need to. Sometimes you just want a solid whodunit while you're stuck in Austin traffic wondering why anyone thought building I-35 was a good idea.
The Setup Works. The Execution? Mostly.
Here's what Lapena does well—she understands operational security. Or the complete lack of it, which is the point. You've got a dozen people trapped in an inn with no power, no cell service, and a body count that keeps climbing. The tactical situation is a nightmare, and watching these civilians fumble through it was genuinely entertaining. They make every mistake in the book. No one secures the perimeter. No one establishes a chain of command. It's chaos, and honestly? That's realistic. Put a bunch of strangers under extreme stress and watch the social contracts dissolve.
The character work is serviceable. Everyone's got secrets—affairs, financial troubles, dark pasts. Standard thriller fare. But Lapena keeps the reveals coming at a good clip, and I found myself genuinely unsure who the killer was until pretty late in the game. That's worth something. I've read too many mysteries where I've got the perpetrator tagged by chapter three.
Where it lost me a bit was the relationship drama. Look, I get it—domestic suspense is the genre. But some of the romantic subplot stuff felt like filler between murders. When you've got a killer loose and people are dying, I don't particularly care about whether Lauren should get back with her ex. Focus on the mission, people.
Huber Behind the Mic
Hillary Huber's narration is polarizing, from what I've heard. And I get why. She's got this very precise, measured delivery that some folks are calling robotic. I didn't hate it. Actually, for a mystery where you need to keep track of multiple suspects and their alibis, that clarity helped. She gives each character a distinct enough voice that I could follow the POV shifts without getting lost.
That said—and I'm just being straight with you here—I bumped it up to 1.25x pretty early on. Her natural pace is deliberate. Too deliberate for my taste. At regular speed, the tension that should be building felt like it was crawling. Speed it up, and suddenly the story moves the way it should. Not a dealbreaker, but something to know going in.
The production quality is clean. No audio issues, no weird editing problems. Just solid, professional work.
Mission Debrief
This is a comfort food mystery. It's not going to change your life or make you rethink the genre. But it's well-constructed, the puzzle is fair, and the payoff at the end earned my respect. Lapena clearly did her homework on the classic locked-room mystery format, and she executes it competently.
Ranger and I went through this one on a series of early morning drives to client meetings. Good commute material. Engaging enough to keep you alert, not so complex that you'll miss something crucial if you have to focus on merging onto the highway.
Who's this for? Folks who enjoy the classic Christie setup but want a modern setting and contemporary characters. Who should skip? Anyone looking for tactical realism or action—this ain't it. The violence happens mostly off-page, and nobody's doing anything particularly clever to survive. They're just scared people making scared decisions.
If slow narration drives you crazy, bump the speed. If you need constant action, look elsewhere. But if you want a solid eight hours of "who's the killer" while you're knocking out errands or a long drive? Mission accomplished.
