Review: An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena

Author: Shari Lapena
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Date of publication: July 2018

It's winter in the Catskills and Mitchell's Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing - maybe even romantic - weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge woodburning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery.

So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off all electricity - and all contact with the outside world - the guests settle in and try to make the best of it.

Soon, though, one of the guests turns up dead - it looks like an accident. But when a second guest dies, everyone starts to panic.

Within the snowed-in paradise, something - or someone - is picking off the guests one by one. And there's nothing they can do but hunker down and hope they can survive the storm - and one another.

I am on a roll lately with good thrillers.  An Unwanted Guest was a random library pick that I flew through because I didn't want to put it down.  The book follows a group of guests at a remote inn in the Catskills.  They end up stranded there when a storm blows in.  The first morning, a guest is discovered dead at the bottom of the stairs.  It seems like an accident, until the next person person is discovered dead.  I'll leave it at that since this is a book that it is better for the reader going in not knowing a lot ahead of time.

If you are a fan of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, you will enjoy this mystery.  The only downside is that there was a large cast of characters that I did initially have a hard time keeping straight. The story is also told through multiple points of view.  Which made it harder to figure out the killer. I wasn't sure which narrative I could trust. The setting created a feeling of claustrophobia and added to the creep factor.  I was definitely kept guessing until the end.  Well, I did call one thing, but that didn't diminish my surprise at what really happened.  If you haven't picked this one up yet, I highly recommend it!