The Turn of the Key

 

This was my first Ruth Ware book, and she didn't disappoint. The first few pages were a bit confusing and left me a little nervous about where the rest of the book was going to go, since this young woman we first meet, Rowan, is all but rambling to some never seen character named Mr. Wexham, who you soon find out is a lawyer. She's a nanny for a family that has experienced a tragic event and is now in trouble and trying to plead her case to him in hopes that he will believe and help her. The gist of the book is her retroactively going through the entire re-telling of events leading up to the tragedy that has put her in the situation she now finds herself in. As a very small criticism, I couldn't help but think to myself that this poor man must have an awful lot of time on his hands to read a book length letter about her predicament, but I'll go with it because it was a compelling narrative she offered.

The story is quietly suspenseful and occasionally eerie, with an ever-present undercurrent of tension, as you never know what's causing the events that she, like a number of nannies before her, is experiencing in the household. The other characters like the handyman, Jack, the housekeeper, Jean, the parents, Bill and Sandra Elincourt, and their four girls, except for the youngest, each add enough questionable behavior to the mix to keep you guessing. About three quarters of the way through, there's a really unexpected twist that left me wondering if I would like where the ending went, but it ended up serving the plot well. Those final chapters have a number of twists and turns that made the ride to the finish a lot of fun, and the ending, if not entirely surprising, is still fantastic. I didn't want to put this one down, and I'll definitely be adding more Ruth Ware books to my TBR list.

I give this a well-deserved ★★★★ ½