"The Turn of the Key" by Ruth Ware (2019)

 

[This review is spoiler-free]

Ghosts and mind games...

Murder and mystery...

Choices and consequences...

The Turn of the Key or should I say "A Series of Unfortunate—yet completely avoidable—Decisions" is my first book by the British psychological crime thriller author, Ruth Ware. I was searching for quick thrillers and the book kinda popped up. I picked it up, fully unaware of Ware's style or how she develops her plots.

The story follows Rowan, a nanny who is not quite happy with her current job, so she decides to apply for an ad about a well-to-do family living in a remote and isolated house somewhere in northern Scotland. But the tempting job doesn't come without a catch—other nannies have come and gone... or ran away. 

My reading experience was positive. The book starts really slowly trying to build up the bleak and dreary atmosphere, but when I reached the 55% mark, things got interesting. 

I read the book as a thriller, not as a horror. Sure, there were a couple of spooky moments but that was it. I guess this is the reason why other readers didn't dig this one by Ware either because of high expectations (In a Dark, Dark Wood for example) or they didn't get what they bought in terms of horror. 

What made the book successful for me was how it engaged me to figure out what was going on. It made me suspect everyone and I made lots of hypotheses. None of it worked because the ending was like a slap to my brain; it was so unexpected and disconcerting.

Regardless, The Turn of the Key is about parental negligence and its psychological effects on the children later, about the roots of such carelessness and how it hides its ugly face beneath the polished surface. Ware summarized the whole book in the following quote:

"It’s like a metaphor for this whole thing, Mr. Wrexham. It’s all connected. The beauty and luxury of this house, and the seeping poison underneath the high-tech facade. The solid Victorian wood of a closet door, with its polished brass escutcheon—and the cold, rank smell of death that breathes out of the hole."

Summary:

The Turn of the Key is a slow-burn thriller/horror with so many twists going on about the last 30%. The 337-page-long book could benefit from extensive editing of the first 50%. The payoff of the final part was worth it.