Review: AN UNWANTED GUEST, Shari Lapena

• this edition published by Penguin UK 2018
• ISBN 978-0-5930-7965-2
• 292 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

We can't choose the strangers we meet.

As the guests arrive at beautiful, remote Mitchell's Inn, they're all looking forward to a relaxing weekend deep in the forest, miles from anywhere. They watch their fellow guests with interest, from a polite distance.

Usually we can avoid the people who make us nervous, make us afraid.

With a violent storm raging, the group finds itself completely cut off from the outside world. Nobody can get in - or out. And then the first body is found . . . and the horrifying truth comes to light. There's a killer among them - and nowhere to run.

Until we find ourselves in a situation we can't escape. Trapped.

My take

For me this was a one sitting book.

It is almost a locked room mystery. A group of people staying in a remote boutique hotel, seemingly not knowing anyone except the person they arrived with. There is an engaged couple a few weeks away from their wedding, a man whose wife was murdered a few years before, a couple whose marriage has almost run its course, and yet another couple who have been together for a while but who in reality know very little about each other. Two women are lucky to have arrived after their car slid off the road on the ice. The hotel is cut off in a snow storm and there is no phone, and eventually no power. But two of them recognise someone they know among the others.

The first body is discovered at the foot of the stairs the next morning, but the murderer is not obvious.

A well constructed mystery and an excellent read.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read
4.5, A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE

Review: A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE, Shari Lapena

• this edition published by Transworld Press 2017
• ISBN 978-0-5930-7741-2
• 288 pages
• author website

Synopsis (book cover)

Why would you run scared from a happy home?

You’re waiting for your beloved husband to get home from work. You’re making dinner, looking forward to hearing about his day. That’s the last thing you remember.

You wake up in hospital, with no idea how you got there. They tell you that you were in an accident; you lost control of your car whilst driving in a dangerous part of town.

The police suspect you were up to no good. But your husband refuses to believe it. Your best friend is not so sure. And even you don’t know what to believe . . .

My Take

One of those novels that hooks the reader right from the beginning.

When Tom Krupp comes home a little later than he had intended, he knows from the open front door, and the absence of his wife Karen, that something is very wrong. His wife's mobile phone and purse are in the house, and it looks as if she left in the middle of preparing dinner. Her car is gone.

A little later a policeman turns up to tell him that his wife has had an accident. At hospital Tom finds that Karen is heavily concussed and appears to have severe amnesia. When she was admitted she was unable to give her name and she kept repeating the name Robert.

The police decide to charge Karen Krupp with reckless driving - she did run some red lights - but they are not convinced by her story of amnesia. They decide to take a closer look at things, to work out why she was driving so badly.

Tom is not convinced by the amnesia angle either and he wonders what Karen is hiding. He searches the house for clues about what might have sent her out that night.

A very readable book, with a few hidden twists.  The ending still came out of left field.

My Rating: 4.5

About the author
Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of THE COUPLE NET DOOR. She was a lawyer and an English teacher before turning her hand to fiction.
She lives in Toronto.