Ayo Onatade is an avid reader of crime and mystery fiction. She has been writing reviews, interviews and articles on the subject for the last 12 years; with an eclectic taste from historical to hardboiled, short stories and noir films
If you like survival thrillers then The Ark by Haruo Yuki is certainly a book that will leave you feeling not only claustrophobic but also with your pulse pounding.
Set in an underground mountain shelter nine friends find themselves trapped after a sudden rock-fall. To accentuate the peril, the sheltering group discover the water within their refuge is steadily rising.
If any of them want to survive then one person has to be left behind. This is not an easy decision to make and as fear mounts along with a murder, the stakes rise, in-concert with the water.
The author keeps the readers on their toes [pun intended], as the tension slowly [but surely] ratchets up, as the starkness of the surroundings and rising water makes the pages fly by.
The narrative is reminiscent of Dame Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None - but with more dread and deeper moral ambiguity. Not only is there engaging character development, but the moral dilemmas presented to the reader make for a thought-provoking blend of a [golden age style] locked-room mystery complete with an ending that will genuinely surprise.
