BookBrowse Reviews Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips

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In this unique locked-room murder mystery set in Depression-era Tennessee, a publicity stunt gone wrong leaves an unusual cast of characters scrambling to escape an underground cave system.

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Leo Lambert has discovered a waterfall, secreted away deep within a mountain cave. Leo calls it Ruby Falls after his wife, and turns it into a tourist attraction. In less than two years, it's drawing in visitors from across the country, and while Ada Smith, Ruby's best friend, appreciates the beauty of the falls, she prefers to explore the surrounding, unmapped caverns, reveling in the beauty of this world hidden beneath the ground. When the Great Depression strikes a few years later, Leo comes up with a unique publicity stunt to increase attendance: Professor Jeremiah Hagathorn, a self-proclaimed mind reader, will travel with a small group into the caves to find a hidden hatpin. Ada, now an accomplished caver, is asked to serve as half of an emergency response team for the tour group, but over the course of the next nineteen hours, as Ada and the others venture deeper into the caves, arguments break out, accusations are made, and behaviors become erratic, increasing the tension until one member of the group is found murdered. Trapped underground with a murderer and running out of supplies, Ada must lead them to safety before anyone else winds up dead or before their headlamps die out. Gin Phillips's Ruby Falls is a locked-room mystery that explores the parts of ourselves we keep hidden from the world and the way people react in the face of fear.

Ruby Falls begins with a dead body: a quick vignette of a murdered man becoming part of the cave in which he was killed. Bats fly overhead, insects feast on his remains, and the fossils in the walls around him sit silently. It's an opening that informs readers of where the story is going—without any spoilers—while also bringing the atmosphere of the caves to life and establishing an initial sense of unease. The next page jumps back several years and begins the tale with a bang: Leo Lambert disappeared seventeen hours ago into a crevice in the middle of a mountain, and Ada Smith is convinced that he's dead. Right away, Ada, our heroine, is established as a level-headed woman who isn't unfeeling but who leans towards practicality. As the scene plays out—Leo finally returns with tales of discovering a waterfall deep in a cave—Phillips uses tiny details not only to build the tension but to quickly flesh out the characters. Ada thinks that she and Ruby "are both women who get frustrated with stupidity, which is one of the reasons they're friends," and when Leo returns, he looks around for his children, his "eagerness and love [visible] even through the muck." Although little more than passing thoughts or reactions, these details bring the characters to life and allow readers to feel the fear, excitement, and relief evident even in just this single scene.

Ruby soon goes into the crevice to see the waterfall herself—an experience she likens to "seeing God," and shortly after, when Ada ventures in, she's immediately hooked. Her life has been boringly ordinary—she's in a comfortable but mundane marriage, she has no children and no job, and her days are predictable. After her husband dies, Ada has nothing to break up her monotony except the call of the caves. Over several years, they come to represent a sense of independence, an experience that is hers and hers alone as she pushes herself physically and mentally. Phillips's descriptions of the caves include countless real details gleaned from her own exploration in Ruby Falls, establishing a sense of beauty and vastness as well as claustrophobia and darkness. Ada's solo caving is the first secret in the story, but it's only one of many that are slowly revealed.

Although the story is mainly told from Ada's point of view, there are several sections told through the eyes of other characters. These sections not only help further build the tension as they pause the main narrative, they also reveal something surprising and important about the highlighted character. For example, Editha Hagathorn, Jeremiah's wife, is seen as a beautiful but shy woman by others, content to follow after her husband. But from Editha's point of view, we learn that, as a child, she trained with circus acrobats, and thus it's foolish that the men are worried about her climbing a cavern wall with her bare hands. Seeing events through the eyes of different characters significantly expands what is essentially an insular story of eight people traveling through a series of caves. The secrets they keep from one another increase suspicion, and when a member of the party is murdered, everyone looks like a potential suspect.

Although Ruby Falls is billed as a historical murder mystery, the murder doesn't happen until more than halfway through the book. The pacing up to that point is slow, letting readers get to know the characters and the caves and building tension that is almost unbearable. Early on, one character thinks that "darkness and tight spaces don't always bring out the best in people," and Phillips proves this is true: the longer the group is underground, the more impatient, arrogant, and angry they become, until all those emotions boil over and result in someone's death.

After the murder, Ada and her partner Quinton, who have been quietly traveling behind the main group as the emergency rescue team, step in to lead everyone out of the caverns. The tension within the group is still there, but it's morphed. Now, they know they're traveling with a murderer, leading to pointed fingers, wild accusations, and a general sense of panic, especially as the headlamps begin to flicker out. Phillips plants just enough clues to keep readers guessing at the identity of the murderer as well as wondering if the group will make it out at all. After a slow first half, the second half of the story is a roller coaster of emotions and action, hurtling toward an unexpected finale.

Ruby Falls is a unique locked room mystery, blending real history with fictional characters in a way that makes the story feel absolutely possible (albeit unlikely). The details of the caves create an immersive setting that serves as the perfect backdrop for the varied cast of characters, and the questions surrounding the murder and the expert use of tension will keep readers on the edge of their seat until the final page.

This review first ran in the March 25, 2026 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.