THE HIKE

Two sisters and their husbands set out on a hike in the Alps that ends in multiple calamities, some of them highly predictable, others not so much.

Catherine and Paul Baxendale were the perfect couple until Paul left his job as a commodities trader over an accusation of assaulting a colleague. Now he works part time as a delivery driver, and Cat, a successful event planner, must depend on the largesse of her younger sister, Ginny, for big-ticket items. That largesse is considerable, since Ginny, who inherited the entire trust fund their late parents had originally planned to split between their two daughters, has multiplied her wealth by marrying banker Tristan Lytham. Despite the friction between the two sisters, friction that runs deeper than Ginny suspects, they’re vacationing together in a Swiss village in the shadow of the Argentine, a mountain that invites a day’s vigorous walk. But an unidentified man who “couldn’t wait to see [Cat] again” is stalking the party, of whom a flash-forward prologue has already hinted only two will remain alive. Holliday keeps up a steady stream of reversals, betrayals, and revelations. Though the cast is so small and the possible permutations in their relationships so limited that savvy readers will see many of the twists coming, most of them land with a satisfying, if not exactly surprising, impact.

Shock and awe among the privileged.