No Turning Back

April 10, 2017
British author Buchanan (After the Life) makes her U.S. debut with a melodramatic serial killer thriller. While radio show personality Anna Graves is walking with her eight-month-old daughter, Joni, along the beach of Ridgmont Waters, the village where she grew up, a teenage boy attacks her with a knife. Her assailant, soon to be identified as Elliot Nunn, a boy from the “deprived docklands area,” takes a fatal fall onto the comb she pulls out of her bag to protect herself and Joni. Witnesses and the police agree that it was self-defense, so why does Anna feel so terrible? When poison is discovered in Elliot’s system, it harkens back to the Ophelia Killer, whom Anna’s father, a journalist, was investigating when he jumped to his death. At this news, everyone in Ridgmont Waters, even Anna’s ex-husband, Guy, turns against her, but she finds an unlikely ally in Elliot’s older brother, Jamie. When another teen’s body is found, Anna is afraid a killer may be closing in on her family. The final denouement, obviously meant to be shocking, defies all credibility. Agent: Caroline Hardman, Hardman & Swainson (U.K.).