In today’s book market, there is a demand for mystery novels with titles -it seems!- that have the word “Girl” or “Woman” in them. These novels also seem to involve characters who aren’t always reliable narrators and plots which delve into these mysteries from a decided female angle.
I spotted a copy of The Woman in Cabin 10, written by Ruth Ware, in Costco one day and, after reading the brief description on the back cover, was intrigued enough to give it a try.
Mind you, the plot of the novel, involving a reporter who gets to travel on the premiere trip of a luxury -but relatively small- cruise ship and meets a woman who then apparently vanishes from the trip, sounded curiously similar to the plot of director Alfred Hitchcock’s first really big successful film, 1938’s The Lady Vanishes.
Look, I’m not going to mince words here: The Lady Vanishes is a far better overall work and, if you know of the film and/or have fond feelings for it, you may find Ms. Ware’s book not only a rather bold appropriation/modernization of that story but, also, a rather weaker one at that.
Which isn’t to say the book is a flop.
Far from it.
The Lady In Cabin 10 (let’s abbreviate it to LC10 from here on, ok?), involved a main character who is very much like some of the “unreliable” narrators in the books I mentioned above. She’s something of a flake, not certain where she’s going with her life and winds up with the reporting job only because her superior, who would have gone, is pregnant and unable to.
When we first meet her, she’s also been the victim of a home invasion/burglary and because of that trauma -and too much liquor- is also suffering from lack of sleep.
When she boards the ship and meets the lady in Cabin 10, it is purely by coincidence and, when she thinks the woman was killed, she finds that no one on the ship knows of her and, further, Cabin 10’s designated occupants never showed for the trip and therefore the cabin was supposedly empty. The ship’s passengers, including an ex-lover, suspect she may be losing her mind, but she persists and, eventually, solves the mystery.
Again, The Lady Vanishes features essentially the same plot. In that movie, a woman on a train trip meets another, elderly woman who subsequently vanishes. Our heroine (who isn’t unreliable as far as that goes) finds no one knows of the missing woman and some aboard the train begin to question her sanity. She persists and, eventually, solves the mystery.
LC10 is, alas, not a great book but I did enjoy Ms. Ware’s writing style and was curious to see where it was all going. You could certainly do much worse than spend some time reading this particular book.
Having said that, you’d probably have a better time simply catching the Alfred Hitchcock film.