The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group discussion

Hi, all.

Here's a thread for discussion, with spoilers, of An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena.

Heather will lead the discussion.

I liked David the most, Henry the least. The book was somewhat, idk, lacking in thrills and chills for me.

I had read this book in the past but forgot who the murderer was as there were so many guests so I gleefully read it again. It dawned on me who the main psychopath was, Lauren, and Beverly took advantage of the situation to her advantage. Lauren was clearly in need of psychiatric intervention early on in her childhood but it was neglected in her foster home upbringing. Basically every “couple” lost a mate, Beverly murdered Henry hitherto undetected, Gwen lost Riley, Matthew lost Dana, James lost Bradley, Ian lost Lauren to the police, and David came solo as did Candice. Such a luxurious place ruined by a psychopathic killer during the ice storm of ages, but I was surprised that such an elite hotel didn’t have its own generator. When we have lived out in the remote area where power outages were enough of an irritant we installed a whole house generator to power our three floors. We have since moved from that site, but that generator helped us. Other than that fact, the rest of the book is excellent and I enjoyed it very much even the second time!

It was a really fun read for me, and even though I too found weird the fact that there was no generator, it sure added up to the tension! Really loved how the inn and the whole setting were almost like characters themselves.
As for the killer, I started suspecting Lauren later on, especially when she was so eager to put the 'psychopath' label on Ian. But I didn't see the Beverly twist coming at all!

I listened to this title year or so ago. I still remember the scene with the movement at the bottom of the stairs (I think it was ) under the blanket. 😬 I was surprised by the ending with not one, but two murderers. 😲

I really enjoyed this book. I like books with this type of ambience: snow, winter, in the middle of nowhere. It reminded me of Agatha Christie too.
It's funny how I suspected almost everyone except the murderers. The prime suspects for me were Bradley, David and Riley.
It was an interesting twist at the end with Beverly killing Henry.