The Turn of the Key (2019)

By Ruth Ware

352pp, Fiction

Notes

2020-05-08

Finally I read a couple of tightly written plot engines. Robert Harris’s second world war Bletchley code-breaking spy-catching rollercoaster Enigma followed by Ruth Ware’s modern Turn of the Screw remix Turn of the Key. I enjoyed both though Emigma is probably more my kind of thing. What reading these two back to back over the course of a week brought home to me is the extent to which plot doesn’t really do it for me in and of itself. Both novels are really highly tuned in terms of suspense and there’s nothing to spare, no fat on them, I felt almost physically dragged through the books in order to get to the resolution and that’s not really enough for me, I find it’s a compelling though perhaps less than pleasant experience. I think maybe this is related to my indifference to spoilers – if all you have for me is a twist ending then I’m not sure I’ll bother thanks. I realise that this puts me at odds with most people, at least judging by how people freak out on the internet if you tell them what happens in a TV show.