One Perfect Couple

One Perfect Couple makes use of plot elements that have become a signature style for Ware’s suspense thrillers, as all of her books focus on a younger woman who must endure unusual or disturbing circumstances as she is forced to solve a central mystery or problem. Ware’s work is frequently compared to Agatha Christie’s because of her reliance on amateur detectives and frequent use of a “locked room” element—an isolated setting in which the characters are trapped with one another. Ware’s novels also contain specific homages to key works in the Christie canon. For example, The Woman in Cabin 10 echoes Christie’s Lord Edgware Dies by featuring a woman who uses her powers of disguise on behalf of a mastermind. Whereas the plot of Christie’s novel rests on an actress’s ambition to marry a Catholic (which requires her husband’s murder rather than a divorce), the mastermind in Ware’s novel wishes to inherit his wife’s fortune, only to be outsmarted by the very woman he paid to impersonate her. Similarly, Ware’s One by One depends heavily on skiing skills, as does the resolution to Christie’s Three Blind Mice. This pattern continues with One Perfect Couple, as the novel’s setting on a remote island and the succession of mysterious deaths are meant to mirror elements of Christie’s And Then There Were None—a story in which 10 people are lured to their deaths by a vengeful man who is eager to see them pay for earlier crimes.

Other Ware novels depend more heavily on the conventions of the gothic thriller, particularly the genre’s emphasis on ominous family legacies and haunted locations. This pattern becomes clear in The Lying Game, which takes place in a boarding school, and The Death of Mrs. Westaway, which takes place in a remote mansion featuring a potentially vengeful housekeeper. In this case, the setting is reminiscent of Manderley, the estate in Daphne du Maurier’s classic tale, Rebecca. Likewise, The Turn of the Key is a direct homage to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and gives the original premise of the story a modern twist. Thus, drawing upon common tropes and patterns in classic literature, Ware modernizes prominent motifs and allusions, constructing thrillers with relevant observations about issues of family, gender roles, and secrecy.