Sinister and state-of-the-art twist on a truly timeless story

Ruth Ware’s utterly compelling new novel is a fine modern addition to a tradition that includes everything from The Mysteries of Udolpho to Jane Eyre and Henry James’s 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw, from which her book draws its title

FICTION: The Turn of the Key, By Ruth Ware, Harvill Secker, €16.45

It’s a tale as old as the gothic novel itself. A young woman arrives at a rambling, isolated country house. She’s an outsider, an employee – a nanny or a governess. This should be the start of a prosperous new life for her. But something is wrong in the house. There are strange sounds coming from unseen rooms. Unexplained objects turn ...