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The Turn of the Key

by Ruth Ware

A nanny’s account from behind bars

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A nanny’s account from behind bars

Rowan Caine’s letter to her lawyer frames a murder case shaped by the circumstances of her live-in nannying job at Heatherbrae House. The Scottish home’s smart systems—cameras, automated lights and music—become part of an unsettling domestic environment, alongside the children’s behavior and Rowan’s long stretches without other adults nearby. She acknowledges lying to secure the position and making mistakes with the children, while denying that she committed murder. The premise brings questions of surveillance, trust and culpability into a psychological-suspense story, with the reader learning about the household through Rowan’s effort to explain how events led to a child’s death and her trial.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers of psychological suspense centered on a murder accusation and disputed guilt.
  • Readers interested in domestic settings where smart-home technology and surveillance shape the conflict.
  • Readers who enjoy stories framed through a protagonist’s account to a lawyer.

Themes

Surveillance and technologyTrust and deceptionGuilt and responsibilityDomestic life under pressure

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"A superb suspense writer...Brava, Ruth Ware. I daresay even Henry James would be impressed." --Maureen Corrigan, author of So We Read On

"This appropriately twisty Turn of the Screw update finds the Woman in Cabin 10 author in her most menacing mode, unfurling a shocking saga of murder and deception." --Entertainment Weekly

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lying Game and The Death of Mrs. Westaway comes this thrilling novel that explores the dark side of technology.

When she stumbles across the ad, she's looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss--a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten--by the luxurious "smart" home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.

What she doesn't know is that she's stepping into a nightmare--one that will end with a child dead and herself awaiting trial for murder.

Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the events that led to her incarceration. It wasn't just the constant surveillance from the home's cameras, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn't just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn't even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman.

It was everything.

She knows she's made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn't always ideal. She's not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she's not guilty--at least not of murder--but somebody is.

Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware's signature suspenseful style, The Turn of the Key is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.
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