The Turn Of The Key by Ruth Ware

 

Rowan Caine is dissatisfied with her life.  Working as an assistant in a childcare facility in London, she doesn't have a boyfriend, her roommate is going traveling for a year without her, and she doesn't have realistic hopes of advancement at her job.  So when she sees the ad looking for a nanny with a fantastic salary, she answers right away.

Her resume gets her an interview and soon Rowan is off to Heatherbrae House, in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands.  There she meets Sandra Ellencourt, an architect.  She and her husband Bill have four children, all girls.  They range in age from fourteen to a toddler.  The Ellencourts have designed their house to be an advertisement for their business.  It is full of modern age technology, with cameras in every room and automatic locks and heating and a program that oversees everything called Happy.  

Rowan is offered the job even though Sandra tells her that four nannies have left suddenly in the recent past and that she and Brian are leaving on a work conference the next week.  The oldest daughter is at boarding school and Rowan feels that she can handle an eight, six and eighteen-month old on her own.  But the girls don't warm to her except for the baby.  The two girls at home run off with their parents' permission on long explorations of the outdoors.  That upsets Rowan as there are ponds and dangers in the woods and even a poison garden, one of the few in existence and protected by the government.  

The strangeness continues inside.  Keys go missing, then reappear.  She thinks she hears someone outside her windows and she knows she hears a creak, creak, creak at night overhead as if someone were walking in an attic, an attic she is told doesn't exist.  There is a woman who comes in to cook and clean who doesn't like Rowan on sight and a caretaker who is also young and who Rowan flirts with but doesn't trust. 

The book is written as a series of letters, mostly from Rowan to a solicitor general.  A child has died under her watch and she is arrested for murder.  What really happened and what was the secret that Rowan herself was keeping?

Ruth Ware is a British author who started in the young adult genre then switched to adult mysteries in 2015.  She has released ten books since then and most have been very successful.  In this one, I felt that the ending was a bit abrupt after a lot of buildup with many tension raising events.  I did like the device of the story being told through the letters which gives the author the ability to ramble on if she feels like it and unlike a conversation could have allowed.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.