


With a shady history, the building itself seems to exude an air of menace and danger that made for a wonderful backdrop. Pearse brings her setting to life with vivid descriptions of the old TB sanatorium and its eerie presence despite having been remodelled into a fancy resort. And when a massive blizzard cuts off the hotel from civilisation, and people start dying, the stage is set for a tense closed door mystery. An old sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps that has been converted into a fancy but sinister hotel – it doesn’t get much better than this.

Let’s start with the things I did enjoy, and the setting is definitely a treat. Given the atmospheric, claustrophobic setting in the Swiss Alps during a blizzard I expected to like this book much more than I did – I wonder what went wrong here?

And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.Įlin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.Īrriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge-there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.Īn imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. Half hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place.
