One by One by Freida McFadden

Description

One by One by Freida McFadden

Freida McFadden is a practicing physician. She specializes in brain injury, lives in a centuries old three-story house in New York City, and has an ocean view. The staircases creak and moan with each step. She claims that nobody could hear you if you scream — unless you scream really loudly. Maybe. Although the three books of hers that I’ve read are (1) eerie, (2) creepy, and (3) scary, they do not rely on the supernatural or blatant horror. But they are definitely the kind of books that you don’t want to put down.

“One by One” (2024, 258 pages in soft-cover format) vaguely reminds me of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians,” also known as “And Then There Were None.” Unlike Christie’s tale, McFadden sets her story in a modern middle-class suburb. Friends, and at least one newcomer, pile into Claire’s SUV and take off for a week’s vacation at a secluded Inn in the mountains.

Claire and her husband Noah, have not been getting along. If fact, Claire reveals that they hate each other and are staying together for the sake of their two children. But the kids, Aiden and Emma, are staying behind in the care of Claire’s sister.

The other passengers are Lindsay (Claire’s best friend) and Warner, Lindsay’s new boyfriend about whom she’s head over heels. And then there’s Noah’s best friend Jack (with whom Claire has been having an affair) and his wife Michelle whom he can’t divorce because she’s the best divorce lawyer in the country and would leave him living in a box, and not a very good box.

The trip starts badly when Noah asks Claire if she remembered to use the bathroom before getting in the car, which he has decided to drive. Of course, she says “yes.” But half an hour later, she really has to go. However, she can’t risk inflaming Noah’s wrath, so she pleads with Lindsay to ask Noah to pull into a rest stop. Naturally, Noah knows that it’s Claire who really needs the facility, and the animosity rises to a conspicuous level.

Then, as the car stalls in the mountains, quite a distance from the Inn, the six vacationers are stranded with little food or water. Lindsay picks some berries, ignores Claire’s advice not to eat strange fruit, and suffers the consequences. Her boyfriend Warner seems little affected by the event.

Then Michelle disappears from the camp in the middle of the night, and Jack goes berserk because everyone wants to press on to the Inn to get help. Warner is the third to disappear. Claire becomes convinced that she’ll never see her children again, but her husband seems to be the stalwart who keeps his head and gradually becomes protective of and affectionate toward her. The three who are still together, Noah, Claire, and Jack, settle into an abandoned cabin, and that’s where the plot begins to unfold.

This is a well-told story with the kind of twists that kept me awake all night.

✅ Genre: Thriller, Psychological thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction.

✅ Premium Quality Books.

✅ High Printing quality.

✅ Eye Friendly.

✅ Eco Friendly paper.

✅ Matt cover (Paperback)