The morning passes and it begins to snow, but Topher convinces the group go to the top of the mountain and take one more trail before lunch. Erin teaches the guests the routes and observes that Liz is not a confident skier, feeling pity for the woman. She learns from the town baker that the avalanche warning is “considerable.” As the guests wake up, they plan to ski in the morning and conduct business meetings in the afternoon when the weather worsens. The next morning, Erin awakes after a nightmare about digging in the snow and gets the chalet ready for the day.

Rik tells Miranda that Liz invested money into the company before the application launched, and as a result, she possesses 2% of the company’s voting shares, worth approximately £12 million in the event of a buyout. Dinner is tense, and afterward Erin overhears Miranda and Rik talking about Liz.

This upsets Topher, who does not want to sell the company. Eva holds a surprise presentation, during which she discusses the potential buyout that Snoop has been offered. After an uncomfortable moment when Erin realizes Liz was not on the original itinerary, drinks and snacks are served.

The Snoop team arrives, and it is obvious that Liz does not fully belong with the group. Erin is a host at the Chalet Perce-Neige who, with the chef Danny, ensures that guests have a perfect experience. Her companions are Topher and Eva, cofounders of the app Elliot, who writes code for the app Rik, the company’s chief financial officer Miranda, who heads media relations Tiger, who manages wellness and design Carl, the company lawyer and Ani and Inigo, both personal assistants. Liz is a shy woman who is accompanying the eight members of the Snoop staff to a ski chalet in the French Alps. The novel then skips to five days before the news article, with the narration alternating between Liz’s and Erin’s first-person points of view. The novel opens with the “About Us” page from the smartphone application Snoop, followed by a BBC news article about a fatal avalanche in the French Alps that is being investigated as murder. This study guide references the 2021 Simon & Shuster Inc. It is the best-selling mystery novel of all time, with more than 100 million copies sold. In Christie’s novel, eight people arrive on an isolated island, met by a butler and housekeeper. One by One is an homage to the novel And Then There Were None (1939) by Agatha Christie.

Ruth ware books one by one