By chance I this book came after the previous book I read, and they really contrast with each other. While both books had narrators that you feel you can’t trust, in The Turn of the Key we gradually see why we felt that way, and then the narrator’s back story is revealed a little more and it makes sense. Both books have a twist, but the one in this book just resonates more – and does a tidy job of wrapping up loose ends.
The writer did a phenomenal job with building up the creepy suspense – it was scary reading sometimes – and I don’t think I’ve read a book (including most of Stephen King’s work) that had me scared more. This wasn’t horror – just a spooky sense of anticipation that something bad was going to happen.
It could almost be a perfect book, except for some awkward uses of technology that didn’t quite work smoothly into the plot. Sometimes the actions of some of the characters strained believability for me – they were just a little too perfectly set up. At first I thought that might have been part of the creepiness factor, but in the end it was setting up something else and was simply a device. I thought it could have been handled a little more elegantly.
Still, these are minor points and the overall experience of reading the book made up for them easily. This mystery is strongly recommended.
Next I am reading Family Meal by Bryan Washington.
