In The Dark is a classic ‘locked room’ mystery with more than a few nods to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Eight people travel to a remote wilderness lodge to enjoy a ‘spa experience’ only to discover the lodge is nothing like the brochures show - it’s abandoned and dilapidated, and the plane they came in has been sabotaged, stranding them in the Canadian wilderness with bad weather closing in fast.
The story jumps back and forth in a short timeframe of a couple of weeks, going from the sole survivor recovering back to the eight leaving for the lodge, and then picking up the story of the police officer and search and rescue expert attempting to find the missing tourists after the plane wreck turns up in a river.
Nothing is as it seems from the beginning of the story, and with chapters told from the PoV of everyone involved, it’s an interesting challenge to figure out who’s masterminding the whole scenario (I did work that one out early on) and just who is doing the killing (this one took a lot longer). There are some unexpected twists and turns, but I have to say I’d have liked more of Mason and Callie in the story, and actually hope these two might make some further appearances in the author’s books as I feel like there’s more story to be told for them.
It’s always difficult in a story like this when almost all the characters are revealed to have done at least one terrible thing in the past, to feel a lot of sympathy for them, which is probably why I wanted more Mason and Callie (the two definitely good people in the story). This does tend almost over into horror with nearly everyone in whose PoV we spend time meeting a gruesome end, and that’s not quite my cup of tea, so in the end I think I’m going to give this four stars. Not my favourite story by this author by a long shot, but still very well written.
