*Summary and Spoilers*
Main Characters:
Topher St. Clair-Bridges: Snoop co-founder and investor in Snoop
Inigo Ryder: Topher's assistant
Elliot Cross: Snoops head coder, Topher's best friend, and investor in Snoop
Eva ven den Berg: Snoop co-founder, Topher's ex, and investor in Snoop
Ani Cresswell: Snoop's PA
Rik Adeyemi: Snoop's finance guy and investor in Snoop
Miranda Khan: Snoop's head of PR
Tiger-Blue Esposito: Snoop employee
Carl Foster: Snoop's lawyer
Liz: ex- employee at Snoop and investor in Snoop
Erin: private concierge at the ski resort and med school drop out
Danny: private chef at the ski resort
Why you should read or listen:
I can't write this without bias. Ruth Ware is my favorite author. The way that she writes has you on the edge of your seat. The book is addicting and has so many deeper elements that you miss by not reading it. The story is written from the perspective of Erin and Liz. The summary does not allow you into their heads like the book does and being in their heads allows you to understand the story in a better way.
But if you don't have time or need a refresher, continue reading!
Quick & Dirty Summary:
*Contains Spoilers*
The investors and employees of a music app, Snoop, go on a retreat to a French ski resort. During the retreat, Eva goes missing, there is an avalanche, and Elliot and Ani are murdered. Liz eventually admits to killing Eva on the ski slope because she was blackmailing her. She also killed Elliot and Ani because they suspected her of killing Eva.
Complete Summary:
Topher, Eva, Rik, Elliot, Miranda, Inigo, Tiger-Blue, Ani, Carl, and Liz go to St Antoine, a French ski resort, for Snoop's corporate retreat. Snoop is a music app that allows you to snoop on what other people are listening to. Topher and Eva founded the company. They each own 30% shares of the Snoop. Elliot, who created the code for the app, owns 19% and Rik, who was there since the start, owns 19%. Liz owns 2% of Snoop's shares because she gave the company 10,000 pounds when they were in a tough spot. The only reason that Liz was invited on the trip is because she is a share holder.
All 10 of them arrive at the resort and get settled into their private chalet. Danny and Erin work at the chalet. Danny is the group's private chef and Erin is their private concierge. Eva and Ani give a presentation about Snoops successes and the possibility of a buyout. Topher gets angry and leaves the room. Topher and Elliot do not want the buyout. They want to continue growing their company. Eva and Rik want the buyout to cash in their company shares. As a shareholder, Liz is the deciding vote and both sides are going to work to get her on their side.
The whole group, minus Elliot, goes skiing. They decide to do a blue trail "La Dame" but when Liz gets up there she has an small accident and freaks out. She goes back to the bubble lift and takes it down the mountain. As the weather gets worse, half the group skis down the mountain and half the group takes the lift. Eva never makes it to the meet-up location.
The group returns to the chalet to let Erin know that Eva is missing. Erin walks to funicular to get down to the pass office and see if Eva's pass was used on a lift recently. Shortly after Erin leaves, there is an avalanche. Danny leaves the chalet to look for Erin. He finds her and brings her back to the chalet. She is hurt but alive. The funicular has been buried by snow. They are trapped in the chalet, Erin is injured, and Eva is still missing. Inigo is the only one with a little reception and is able to contact police before he loses service.
Elliot uses a new Snoop feature, geo-snooping, that he has been creating to locate Eva's phone. Eva's phone location is off the side of a ski trail in an inaccessible valley. Eva is assumed dead. Some of the guests are upset, while Elliot and Carl are worried about what will happen to Eva's shares in the company. Due to a shareholder agreement, Eva's shares will have to be sold by her husband to Topher. Topher will have 60% of the company's shares.
The chalet loses power and the only source of heat are blankets and a fireplace. Topher gets drunk to deal with Eva. While Erin stumbles to pass out more blankets for sleeping, Topher questions her about where she used to work. He thinks he's seen her before and gets angry. Danny steps in and the situation is diffused.
The next morning, Erin and Danny gather the group to discuss the situation. They have not been able to touch base with search and rescue again. Danny walked to the two closest chalets. They were both unoccupied, so no-one was there to help. Ani realizes that Elliot isn't at the meeting so she goes upstairs to get him. When she gets there, he is dead on his desk and his laptop is broken.
Erin closes Elliot's room to preserve the crime scene. Inigo tries to get ahold of the police again but no luck. Erin and Danny sneak back into Elliot's room to check for evidence. They notice white chalky powder in the bottom of Elliot's coffee mug. Elliot was murdered. Danny and Erin start to suspect that Erin was murdered as well.
The group starts to question one another. Inigo is accused of not calling the police but he confesses that he was in love with Eva and wouldn't kill her. Later that day, Ani goes to look for Inigo but he's not answering his door. When they get in his room they see a note that says he's made a mistake and going to put it right. They look for his things but notice his jacket and skis are gone. It's late and dark, so no one goes after him.
At night everyone pairs up. Erin and Danny stay in the staff quarters together. Miranda and Rik share a room, so do Ani and Tiger and Carl and Topher. Liz decides she's better off alone with her door locked and a chair infront of her door. Ani goes to Liz's room in the middle of the night because she's worried about her. She asks Liz to go to her and Tiger's room but Liz won't. Ani tells Liz that she feels like there's something she saw but can't put her finger on it. Liz thinks it's the key to finding the killer.
A scream, coming from Tiger and Ani's room, wakes everyone up. Everyone rushes to the room and finds Ani dead. Someone smothered Ani with a pillow in the middle of the night. The door to Tiger and Ani's room was locked, so the obvious suspect is Tiger, but she took sleeping pills. Danny realizes that his staff keys are gone which means someone has access to all the rooms.
Topher accussed Erin and Danny of working together to murder them. He confronts Erin about knowing her from his past and she admits that it's true. Erin is really Dorothea de Plessis FitzClarence. Her brother, Alex, went to school with Topher, Rik, and Elliot. Erin explains that she, Alex, and her boyfriend where in a skiing accident three years ago. There was an avalanche while they were skiing and Erin was the only one who survived. She left her old life behind and came back to the mountain to "be with" her brother and boyfriend.
Tiger remembers Ani trying to wake her up in the middle of the night and saying "I didn't see her". The group tries to figure out what that means. Topher, Rik, and Tiger decide to try to get to the village by skiing/ snowboarding. Carl, Miranda, and Liz decide to snowshoe the the closest other chalet. Before they leave, Liz falls down the stairs and hurts her knee. She has to stay at the chalet with Erin and Danny goes to the chalet with Carl and Miranda instead.
Erin and Liz spend the day playing cards and waiting for everyone to return with help. They decide to sleep in the living room. Liz goes upstairs to get bedding and Erin starts to make the couches into beds. She finds Danny's staff keys where Liz was sitting. Erin sneaks out of bed to go into Elliots room. She finds his cell phone on his body and tries to call for help. The phone does not have service but she sees that is Snoop is open. Through Elliot's geo-snoop GPS she can see that user Anon101 is in the chalet with her. Which means Liz is Anon101.
The ending
Erin uses Elliot's phone to send a message to Danny in hopes that the phone will get service. The message is asking for help because Liz is the murderer. Liz and Erin both pretend to sleep. They both hear a beeping noise coming from upstairs. They run upstairs and Liz finds the phone and the message Erin had sent. Liz explains to Erin that when she worked for Snoop, Eva got her all dressed up to impress some executive. He tried to assault Liz and she pushed him away but accidentally pushed him off a balcony. Eva helped Liz and she was never connected to the incident but she quit Snoop. Eva tried to use the incident to blackmail Liz into voting with her for the buyout.
Liz also explains that Elliot was killed because he realized that Anon101 was the only person who skied the slope that Eva was killed on. Which means, that Eva was killed before and Liz never went on the ski lift. She pretended to be Eva in the same color jacket and skiied down the slope. Ani was killed for remembering that she never saw Liz on the ski lift.
While Liz is confessing she makes tea and Erin pretends to drink it. She also pretends to pass out. When Liz leaves the room Erin escapes out a window with skis and a jacket. Liz puts on skis and follows her. They both race down the mountain through the forest. Erin falls when Liz is getting closer to her. Liz thinks she's going to catch up to her when she hits a brick wall and dies.
The aftermath
Erin, Danny, Miranda, Carl, Topher, Rik, Tiger, and Inigo all survive the disaster on the mountain. Erin spends some time in the hospital but will recover completely. Inigo had told the police the wrong name for the chalet which is why he had to go for help. Eva's husband sends Topher a digital file filled with blackmail that Eva was holding over people's heads. It includes a video of Liz pushing the man off the balcony.
Snoops files for bankruptcy and the ski resort closes. Topher turns over the digital file to the police. Erin returns to England to renuite with her family and grieve her losses. Danny gets a new job as a chef and promises to stay in touch with Erin.