Two Mysteries: "One by One," by Ruth Ware, and "The Mystery of Mrs. Christie," by Marie Benedict

Regular readers of this blog may remember that I have had a lifelong on-again, off-again relationship with mystery novels. Some of my favorites as a young girl were the Nancy Drew books, and later most of Agatha Christie’s work, leading into the mysteries of Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and other British and Commonwealth authors. Still later I devoured the books of several California women authors that featured California women detectives, such as Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone. Other favorite mystery writers over the years included Anne Perry, P.D. James, Elizabeth George, Jacqueline Winspear, Deborah Crombie, and so many more. I have read probably hundreds of mysteries over the years. But I have also had several long periods of being tired of mysteries and not reading them. After one such period, I recently picked up a couple. Unfortunately, neither was very satisfying. The first, “One by One” (Scout Press/Simon and Schuster, 2020), was my first book by the popular Ruth Ware. It plays on the theme and plot of Agatha Christie’s famous book “And Then There Were None,” and is expertly plotted. It takes place in an isolated ski resort in the French Alps, where the leadership of an English tech firm gathers. As a storm and avalanche shut them in, the tensions among the techies play out in deadly ways. It kept my attention, but there is something empty about the story and book, at least for me. In an unplanned connection, the other book in this genre that I read almost immediately after the first was Marie Benedict’s “The Mystery of Mrs. Christie” (Sourcebooks, 2021). This novel is an imagined version of a true story: Agatha Christie’s never-explained eleven-day disappearance. The author treats the absence as a mystery to be solved, and gradually gives readers background information that eventually leads to a somewhat satisfying if a little too cerebral resolution. The strong point of the book is its thoughtful insights into the characters’ motivations and emotions. But although I enjoyed this book much more than the first one, it didn’t make me want to start reading more mysteries again. Maybe in a couple of years…following my lifelong pattern…who knows when the yen for mysteries will reappear…