Do you want to know the ending for One by One by Ruth Ware? Have you read One by One and are looking for spoilers? Check out my plot summary and spoiler discussion below!
Plot Summary of One by One
If you DO NOT want spoilers, just go read my spoiler-free review of One by one instead!
The founders and core staff of Snoop, a music app, head to a remote chalet in the French Alps for a corporate retreat and some skiing.
Snoop characters: co-founders Topher and Eva, accountant Rik, tech guy Elliot, marketer Miranda, lawyer Carl, “head of zen Tiger Blue, plus assistants Ani and Inigo and former employee Liz.
Staff: Erin, the chalet hostess and Danny, the chef
The group gathers at the chalet. Eva spoils the mood by announcing that Snoop has a buyout offer. She wants to take it and Topher is opposed. This immediately splinters the group into factions.
Topher and Eva each have 30 percent of voting shares, Elliot and Rik 19 percent each, and Liz 2 percent, making Liv the tiebreaker on the decision.
Putting tensions aside, the group decides to go skiing even though bad weather is coming. They get separated on the slopes. Eva doesn’t make it back to the chalet.
The storm causes an avalanche and the rest of the group is trapped in the chalet without power or phone service.
Elliot realizes that the Snoop app can track Eva and they locate her phone signal … at the bottom of a cliff. If this is the case, she is most certainly dead. They try to contact the police.
Elliott then turns up dead in his room, his computer destroyed.
Danny and Erin are completely freaked out as they realize Eva’s death might not have been an accident. They talk to Ani, the person who last saw Eva alive, skiing in the blizzard in her bright red jacket. They are hoping to get clues as to what happened to her.
Ani turns up dead the next morning, smothered with a pillow as she slept.
Topher, who had thought Erin looked familiar, realizes she is actually Daphne, the sister of a former classmate of his who died in an avalanche. Daphne’s brother and her boyfriend died in the tragedy, but she survived.
Everyone left alive (except Liz and Erin, who are each injured) skies off to get help.
Erin realizes that Liz is the killer. Liz pretended to take the ski lift down to the bottom of the mountain right before Eva disappeared. Actually, she hid and waited for Eva and pushed her off a cliff. She took off her frumpy oversized ski jacket under which she had a red jacket just like Eva’s. Then she skied down so that the others thought she was Eva (it was a blizzard!)
Liz then had to kill Elliot because he was using the Snoop app to track the person he thought killed Eva. She killed Ani because she was convinced that Ani figured out she was the killer.
Erin tries to use Elliot’s phone to text for help. Liz has figured out that Erin knows she is the killer, so as Erin waits for help to come, she gets Liz to tell her about the murders. Liz murdered Eva because Eva took her out with a potential investor who tried to assault Liz. Eva know that Liz accidentally pushed him to his death, and blackmailing her.
Liz drugs Erin and texts Danny claiming that Erin is actually the killer. Erin pretends to be drugged, then sneaks out and skis off, in spite of the fact that she has a badly sprained ankle. Liz follows her as they race toward the village but Liz, less familiar with the terrain, crashes and dies.
Topher learns that Eva had a video of Liz murdering the potential investor.
The buyout deal is withdrawn and Snoop goes bankrupt.
Spoiler Discussion for One by One by Ruth Ware
Whoa – that was quite the ride!
Did you guess the killer was Liz? I always thought Liz did it – I had my eye on her from the beginning, as she was so mousy and timid. The other person on my list was Erin. I thought she might have been getting revenge for her brother and boyfriend’s deaths (but that was wrong!)
I was super excited for the cat and mouse game between Liz and Erin. That was pretty suspenseful, as well as the scene when Erin is skiing on a broken ankle, knowing that her life depends on getting to the bottom of the hill in one piece.
The sexual assault and Liz being a murderer and Eva being a blackmailer felt like a lot to me – it felt a little info-dumpy. But I still found this super-suspenseful and fun – I could not put it down!
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Thank you! I listened to the book but it expired half way through the last chapter. I love Ruth Ware! I love the narrator who reads her recorded books too! I was suspicious of Liz and tried to listen to her chapters as if she was the killer. It was a great book! I would have actually liked MORE about the Liz and Ava relationship and blackmail. I thought that part was so interesting! Thank you for the review!
Hi Eve! Oh, no. It’s the worst when your book gets returned before you finish. I was definitely suspicious of Liz and I agree that I’d have loved more about the blackmail.
I loved Turn of the key and Dark woods! I wonder why there aren’t any movies of her book!!
That’s a really good question! I also loved In a Dark Wood and think that a lot of her books would make a great movie!
I enjoyed the book, but there are some fundamental flaws. For Liz’s murder of Ava to succeed as described, she would have had to have it all planned in advance. How did she know Ava was going to be wearing a red ski jacket (so she could bring her own similar one) and that she would be able to catch her alone in a steep run in a blizzard? Am I missing something? What do you think?
Those are good questions! Liz does mention she was the one who bought Ava’s red jacket. Liz was Ava’s assistant and she says she went to Harrod’s to pick the jacket up. So she did know that Ava had a red jacket and could have brought her own similar one. But I do agree that murder plan itself seemed a little disjointed. Liz pushes Ava and she falls in the snow, which didn’t seem like enough to kill her. Then suddenly a whole ledge of snow gives way and falls on top of Ava, which seemed like something Liz couldn’t have planned.
What actually happened was that Liz pushed Eva, amd Eva fell on a ledge. However, before Eva could try to climb back up, the ledge gave way and she plummeted to her death.
Liz had been to this mountain previously, which is why she was able to ski the black run even on such a bad weather.
But the fact that Eva was alone was just lucky.
Maybe she still planned to make it look like an accident even if she was with other people, but she definitely had luck on her side.
For the jacket, since she got Eva the jacket, she knew were to buy the same one. But again, its luck that Eva didn’t just use another jacket (I doubt that was the only one Eva, a rich woman, would have).
Thanks, that makes sense. And yes, good point! Eva could easily could have had owned/worn other jackets
Ohhhh…..I finally got around to reading this one and so far I love it! I also had a feeling that it was Liz…but I can’t read a book until I know the ending so I popped on here and I LOVED reading your synopsis full of all of the details that I need to finish the book! Perfect! Thanks so much for providing info to people that need to know the ending before they arrive at the end of the book! LOL
Kerie
Hi Kerie,
Thanks so much for your comment! I am also a peeker at book endings (and also TV shows) and I always feel so weird about it so I love hearing from people who feel the same way!
I’m exactly the same. I can’t fully enjoy a book unless I know the ending bc I’m too distracted trying to figure out who the killer is.
Sometimes I enjoy the process of deduction, but if a book has something I know will annoy me, like an unresolved ending, it can be good to know that ahead of time!
I have only just completed this and considered it a decent read.
I wouldn’t call it to a whodunit as I thought it would be Liz from very early on. This was possibly due to the repetition of the narrative that she had been a victim all her life.
I thought the mind games that played out with just the two of them in the chalet towards the end and the following ski chase was thoroughly entertaining.
I’ll certainly be reading other titles from the author.
Hi Paula – thanks so much for coming by and sharing your thoughts. It didn’t occur to me that Liz the victim would be seeking retribution – good for you for deducing that!
If you haven’t read other books by Ruth Ware, I’d say The Woman in Cabin 10 and In a Dark Dark Wood have the most similar feel to this. The Death of Mrs. Westaway didn’t really work for me. Turn of the Key was a modern gothic that I liked! The only one I haven’t read is The Lying Game.
I’ve been thinking of doing author features where we could all discuss all of an author’s books. What do you think?
I’ll definitely look out for those as I did like her writing style and storyline.
Love your idea of a discussion on an authors collective works, great way of guiding people into suitable books for them or even picking works that may not be obvious to them.
I’m so glad – if you are interested and not subscribed to my monthly thriller and mystery email, I will have more information there – you can sign up here and unsubscribe anytime.
What I didn’t understand is how Liz could have known to wear a bright jacket under her frumpy snowsuit. I had she planned to kill Eva all along? Or was it a murder of opportunity?
Hi Lynn – it is confusing. She was planning something! She’d bought the original jacket at Harrods for Eva. Then, like you said, toward the end when Liz is talking to Erin, Liz says that she wore the same distinctive red jacket under her oversized blue snowsuit.
Then she confesses to pushing Eva, but I’m not sure how she’d know that the snow ledge would break and Eva would die.
I thought Eva faked her death and she was it actually, who killed everyone…
I love a good faked your own death plot!!