Saturday, November 23, 2019

The Turn of the Key (Ruth Ware)

I've read and reviewed everything Ruth Ware has written, and she is definitely one of my go-to authors, mystery or otherwise. During my bookstore days, The Woman in Cabin 10 was the book I most often recommended when customers asked for a suggestion. I am a very slow reader, but I stated in my review that I read the whole thing in a 24-hour period and raced to the end to see how Ware would wrap it up. The same thing happened to me with her latest, The Turn of the Key.

This is your classic "All alone in a big haunted house in the middle of nowhere" story; however, Rowan Caine is not "quite" alone. She answers an ad to become a live-in nanny to four children (well, three and a teenager in boarding school), a job which pays a suspiciously outrageous sum but has lost all the other nannies over the years. The house feels like it is constantly watching, and that's because it has cameras everywhere.

But this isn't where the story begins -- it starts with Rowan in prison after her stint as the nanny. She is writing letters begging Mr. Wrexham to become her new solicitor and adamantly proclaiming that she did not kill that child. So before we even get into the main gist of the novel, Ware sucks us in
with the knowledge that one of the children will end up dead and Rowan will be arrested for the murder.

From the intriguing beginning to the final twist on the last two pages (literally), Ware has created another fascinating page-turner. I may even go all the way in saying that The Turn of the Key is now my favorite Ruth Ware novel, beating out finally The Woman in Cabin 10.

MY RATING - 4