Denise's Reviews > The Sanatorium

Oh Reese, I’m sure if I met you in “real life,” I would find you to be a lovely person, but I just have to put this out there - your book selections suck....

For the first twenty chapters or so, I thought this book might be a winner and there was no way the plot could go totally off the rails - then the first body is found and things went downhill faster than Andrew Cuomo's approval rating. By the end, I was thinking maybe I should check myself into a sanatorium for sticking with this book.

Let me set the stage ... An imposing, former-sanatorium-turned-five-star-hotel, high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place that our protagonist, Elin Warner, wants to be. She is on a sort-of hiatus from her job as a UK detective though, so when her estranged brother, Isaac (whom she secretly suspects of killing their brother when they were young), and his fiancée (and Elin's former friend), Laure, invite Elin and her new boyfriend to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, she thinks it will be the perfect occasion to finally confront her brother about the death of their sibling - whatever could possibly go wrong with that plan?! When they arrive, a major winter storm (complete with avalanches, of course) is looming, and Elin immediately feels on edge. When Laure goes missing almost immediately, and the guests start panicking, Elin's detective instincts start to kick in. Then the bodies start piling up - literally - and it's up to Elin to figure out who is doing the killing and why.

Up until that point, my interest was somewhat peaked, and I thought the plot could be setting up for an interesting dynamic, but then Elin finds the first body in the pool. The woman's arms are bound and several of her fingers have been cut off, but Elin still seems confused as to whether it is an accident or not. Only when she finds a sandbag near the body does the lightbulb seem to go off - "Any lingering doubts she has are gone: a sudden, sharp jag of realization hits in her gut. This isn't an accident. She's been killed. This is murder." Seriously?! Because there are so many accidental pool drownings where the victim has missing fingers, and her arms tied behind her back ... And that is just par for the course when it comes to the bumbling detective work Elin does from that point on. I still held on to hope though that there would be some wild twist that would make the seemingly random body count make sense, but no such luck. When all is finally revealed, it felt like an old episode of Scooby-Doo, where the "pesky kids" pull off the disguise and have that jinkies! moment of fake shock at the villain's identity. It was just as corny, as the killer and the motive were weak and just not believable at all. Oh, and then there's an epilogue! I almost forgot to mention that - WTF was that about? If that was intended to be a tease for a sequel, count me out!

Overall, a lame plot, bad characters, and a tired setting made this a 2-star read for me. Many times I end a less-than-stellar review by saying "it might just be me;" but with this one I'm pretty confident stating it's not just me - this just isn't a great book.