“Il faut bonne mémoire après qu'on a menti'
A liar should have a good memory.”
The Sanatorium
My rating
5 / 5
Author
Sarah Pearse
Publisher
Bantam Press
Genre
Mystery/Thriller
Number of Pages
383
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Summary
Elin Warren, a detective on leave, is in the Swiss Alps to celebrate her brother Isaac’s engagement. The hotel they are placed in is 2200 meters above sea level and is isolated and has a morbid history. It is built on the site of a sanatorium where patients with TB were treated. But it also has a disgusting secret history that haunts the place.
As soon as Elin arrives there she begins to feel on edge, but things turn uglier when on the following morning they discover that Isaac’s fiancé, Laure, who is also employed at the hotel has disappeared. Elin wants to help her brother find Laure but their past comes to play catch up. The Warren family lost their youngest son and Elin’s youngest brother Sam in a freak accident and Elin believes Isaac has answers to what happened.
But destiny has other plans when a body turns up in the pool beside the hotel, mutilated and with a strange gas mask on their face. Erin realizes she has a job to do when the Swiss police are cut off from them because a snowstorm has blocked access to the hotel and they are completely on their own.
Guests start panicking and all hell breaks loose when another body turns up with a similar signature. Who is this killer and what do they want?
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My Review
This murder mystery book is close to 400 pages long and yet I finished this book over the weekend. That itself might give you an idea of how good the book is.
The best part, the breath-taking background of the Swiss Alps and the eerily haunting set-up of the hotel built on a sanatorium. This novel, I felt was entirely atmospheric. I could feel the cold blast of the icy wind and the clinical aesthetics of the hotel rooms.
The story too was well thought out and left no gaps or loopholes. It was fast-paced. I felt like something was happening all the time that had me reading without a break. And it also has its fair shares of twists and turns.
Final Verdict
All in all a mystery that deserves a perfect score. I love reading this kind of atmospheric mystery and hope to read many more.
Warning – some gory details about the sanatorium ongoings and the mutilation of the murdered victims.
Sarah Pearse
Sarah Pearse lives by the sea in South Devon with her husband and two daughters. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick and worked in Brand PR for a variety of household brands. After moving to Switzerland in her twenties, she spent every spare moment exploring the mountains and the Swiss Alpine town of Crans Montana, the dramatic setting that inspired her novel.
Sarah has always been drawn to the dark and creepy - remote spaces and abandoned places - so when she read an article in a local Swiss magazine about the history of sanatoriums in the area, she knew she’d found the spark of the idea for her debut novel, The Sanatorium. Her short fiction has been published in a wide variety of magazines and has been shortlisted for several prizes.
Image and Bio from Goodreads
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