“The Woman in Cabin 10” by Ruth Ware

I landed my first paying full-time job as a journalist in 1989 for “TravelAge West,” in the magazine’s San Francisco office. It was a travel trade magazine and the reason I got the job was because another Northwestern alumni, named Sandra, saw my resume, and pulled it from the middle of a stack of submissions. I will always be grateful to Sandra because the job was amazing. One of my first and favorite assignments was to fly to Nagasaki, Japan, and visit a cruise ship that was being built in the town’s harbor. A year later, I sailed on the maiden voyage of that cruise ship, The Crystal Harmony, as it left from Puerto Rico, navigated the Panama Canal and visited several Caribbean islands. There was so much caviar and champagne on the ship that I never wanted to leave. So flash forward to this new book “The Woman in Cabin 10,” by Ruth Ware. This is a thriller about a British travel writer named Laura “Lo” Blacklock, who goes on an assignment for a week on a luxury cruise ship. Unfortunately, Lo’s assignment did not turn out as well as mine. One cannot help but compare this book to “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins, which I review earlier this year. Both books start out with a drunken female narrator. It is not the most dependable narrator to have, but provides you with a sense of uncertainty, which is always good for a thriller. I enjoyed this book because it paired the glamour of cruising with Lo’s own anxiety and insecurities about her life. The plot is so well crafter, that I really wasn’t sure where it was going until the very last page.  Bon Voyage! To purchase this book on Amazon click here.