In a Dark, Dark Wood
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 Book cover | |
| Author | Ruth Ware |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Psychological thriller |
| Set in | London Northumberland |
| Publisher | Scout Press |
Publication date | 2015 |
| Pages | 496 |
| ISBN | 9781501112317 |
In a Dark, Dark Wood is a 2015 psychological thriller novel by British author Ruth Ware. The novel follows Leonora Shaw, a reclusive writer who wakes in hospital with amnesia after attending a deadly hen party at a remote glass house in the English countryside.
Crime writer Leonora "Nora" Shaw receives a surprise invitation to the hen party of Clare, her childhood best friend, to whom she has not spoken in 10 years. She ultimately agrees to attend together with her friend Nina, another classmate who is now a doctor. Flo, Clare's best friend from university, and Clare's other friends Melanie and Tom are also in attendance.
Nora and Nina travel from London to a modernist glass holiday home in the Kielder Forest. The house has a single landline phone and a spotty mobile signal, as well as a shotgun loaded with blanks for scaring off rabbits. Nora goes for an afternoon run and encounters Clare on the way back. Clare tells Nora that she is marrying James, Nora's ex-boyfriend from secondary school. The couple broke up at 16 after Nora (who went by "Lee" at school) became pregnant. Nora had an abortion after a text from James telling her not to call him. She then transferred to a new school and lost contact with James and Clare. James is now a successful actor, while Nora has found it hard to get over the breakup.
The other guests are unnerved by Flo's erratic and clingy behaviour; she copies Clare's outfits and is obsessed with creating the "perfect weekend" for Clare. Returning from a morning run the next day, Nora finds fresh footprints in the snow between the house and the garage. Melanie discovers the landline is down and decides to leave early, worried about her six-month-old son. That day, the five remaining attendees go clay pigeon shooting. At night, they hear a door swaying in the wind. Flo grabs the shotgun to intimidate any intruders; they lock the door and return to bed. Later, they again hear noises and see a man climbing the stairs. The shotgun goes off in Flo's hands, having apparently been loaded with live shells from the shooting range.
Nora is shocked to see that the man is James, bleeding badly. Clare drives off with James to hospital, apparently mishearing Tom's instructions to wait for Nina. The last thing Nora remembers is running after Clare's car; she wakes up in hospital with bruises, cuts, and amnesia. Nora is interviewed by the police and learns that James is dead and Clare is unconscious; James would likely have survived, but died after Clare crashed her car. Nina reveals to Nora that Flo has attempted suicide via paracetamol overdose.
The police confront Nora with her mobile phone, which contains texts to James telling him to come to the house. In addition, Nora's fingerprints are on the steering wheel of Clare's car; the police suspect Nora tried to crash the vehicle after Clare picked her up. Nora believes she is being framed, but cannot trust her own memory. Escaping from hospital, Nora returns to the house, now a crime scene. She remembers finding a coat with the missing shotgun blanks after Clare drove off, which suggests the coat's owner loaded the gun. However, she is uncertain whether it belonged to Clare or Flo, given their similar fashion sense.
Clare arrives at the house and tries to convince Nora that Nora crashed the car due to her jealousy. Nora suddenly recalls that in James' breakup text, he addressed her as "Lee" instead of "Leo" (his pet name for her). She realises that Clare sent the text from James' phone, instigating their breakup so she could date him. When James found out about Clare's deception, he wanted to call off the wedding unless Clare told Nora the truth. Clare decided to kill James instead—and frame Nora—to preserve her "perfect" public image. Flo and Clare sent the texts to James from Nora's phone during the times she was out running; they made the footprints in the snow while searching for a mobile signal at the property.
Nora flees, pursued by Clare in her car, but Clare crashes into a police vehicle arriving at the house. Waking up again in hospital, Nora learns that Clare is injured and now the only suspect in James' death. Flo later dies of her overdose. Nora returns home to London and considers getting a coffee with James' best man Matt.
Background
In a Dark, Dark Wood is Ware's first thriller novel and her first book written under a pseudonym, after several young adult fantasy novels published under her birth name, Ruth Warburton.[1][2] It is also the first release of Simon & Schuster's Scout Press imprint.[3][4]
In an interview, Ware called hen parties "the perfect setting for a thriller" because they involve "a group of quite disparate people thrown together" where "emotions are running high."[5] According to Ware, the novel's glass house setting took inspiration from the Scream horror film franchise, which features "shots where the camera is circling the house looking in through the windows."[5] However, she said the house itself was "totally made up... though it does owe a lot to some of the more crazy, modernist projects on Grand Designs."[6] Ware also described her writing as influenced by Agatha Christie, although more emotional and less detached than Christie's stories.[5]