DON'T TURN AROUNDThe police call him Merkury. He’s a killer who seems to choose his victims at random. He leaves no evidence behind, and no witnesses. Except for one.
When Kate Summerlin was eleven years old, she climbed out her bedroom window on a spring night, looking for a taste of freedom in the small college town where she and her parents were living. But what she found as she wandered in the woods near her house was something else: the body of a beautiful young woman, the first of Merkury’s victims. And before she could come to grips with what she was seeing, she heard a voice behind her, the killer’s voice, saying: “Don’t turn around.” Now, at the age of twenty-nine, Kate is a successful true crime writer, but she has never told anyone the truth about what happened on that long-ago night. When Merkury claims yet another victim—a college student named Bryan Cayhill—Kate finds herself drawn back to the town where everything started. She sets out to make sense of this latest crime, but the deeper she gets into the story, the more she comes to realize that it isn’t over. Her search for the truth about Merkury is leading her down into a dark labyrinth, and if she hopes to escape she’ll have to meet him once again—this time face to face. Publication date: April 2, 2024 Order online: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Books-A-Million > Read an excerpt from DON'T TURN AROUND Reviews of DON'T TURN AROUND> Wall Street Journal (May 24, 2024): "Kate Summerlin, the protagonist of Harry Dolan’s 'Don’t Turn Around,' has written a pair of true-crime books about murdered women. What should be the focus of her third book? The choice seems obvious: the death by strangulation, 18 years ago, of a college student in upstate New York. Melissa Cornelle was the first victim of a still-at-large serial killer known as Merkury, a fiend who has since murdered at least 10 more people in various states. It was an 11-year-old Kate who discovered Melissa’s body. "Now Merkury has returned to the town of the original crime and killed another college student. 'As tragic as it is,' Kate’s literary agent says, 'it’s an opportunity for you.' Write about both cases, she urges, and connect them. An undecided Kate returns to the town and begins to accumulate information while she stays with her retired father in the house where she grew up. She encounters Lee Tennick, a blogger and podcaster whose original coverage of Melissa’s death had made him famous in the true-crime milieu. "Lee is eager to collaborate, but others discourage Kate’s investigation. The recent victim’s father warns that he may sue. The town’s police chief urges her to drop 'this girl-detective thing you’re doing.' Instead, Kate doubles down on interviews, goes on reconnaissance trips with Lee and tries to imagine the killer’s motive. 'If you can’t find a pattern with Merkury,” Lee suggests, “maybe we just have to admit we don’t know why he does what he does.' "The impulsive Kate, whose childhood secrets are released one shocking segment at a time, puts herself in danger as her snooping draws the attention of the killer she’s chasing. 'Don’t Turn Around' mixes police procedural, small-town scandal and childhood terror in ways that will keep you reading straight until the dawn." -- Tom Nolan > Kirkus Reviews (April 2024): "A true-crime author whose whole life seems to have been dictated by her brush with a killer when she was a child is forced to confront the demons he unleashed. "Kate Summerlin was 11 when she sneaked out of her bedroom window, wandered around the wooded area surrounding her yard in upstate New York, and found the elaborately posed body of Melissa Cornelle, a former student of her father, Seagate College professor Arthur Summerlin. Even worse, the killer, who was still on the scene, came up behind Kate, touched a gun barrel to her neck and commanded her, 'Don’t turn around.' How much more stressful could things get? Well, Melissa’s was only the first of 11 murders committed and staged by a killer signing himself Merkury. A newly discovered victim, Seagate student Bryan Cayhill, stretches this string to 12. And Kate, who’s widely associated with the case even though she’s always avoided it in writing her own books, is covering up some terrible secrets about that night, beginning but not ending with the fact that she and Merkury had a much longer conversation than she reported to Alexander Police Chief Vera Landen or anyone else. Canny spine-tingler Dolan brings his pot to such a rolling boil of violence and shocking revelations halfway through that you may wonder what could possibly follow. Rest assured: Things could get even worse, even though you’ll have to swallow some wild implausibilities along the way. "Go ahead and suspend your disbelief. Every shiver will tell you it’s worth it." > Criminal Element (April 29, 2024): "Don’t Turn Around is one of those books you can’t quite put down. Harry Dolan manages to pull off some truly surprising revelations as the story twists and turns to its dramatic and seemingly inevitable conclusion. While Kate’s impulsivity and self-destructive tendencies can be off-putting at times (in fiction as in life!), her more redeeming qualities—such as a burgeoning desire for the unfettered truth, regardless of the cost—are ultimately sustaining. The eventual confrontation with her boogeyman (boogeymen?), then, is the redefining moment of her life, even as she stares death in the face. This is a solid, suspenseful thriller that demands heads-down until the last page is turned." -- John Valeri > Bookreporter (April 27, 2024): "Harry Dolan provides many twists and turns along the way to keep readers guessing, not to mention darkness at the end of Kate’s personal labyrinth, which she had never wanted to revisit." -- Ray Palen > Press-Republican (April 30, 2024): "Whether or not you’re familiar with Harry Dolan is beside the point. If you’re a thriller junkie like me, you will engulf his latest hard-to-put-down thriller, Don’t Turn Around. Like his past five standalone novels, Dolan’s newest book will scare you and keep you reading until the early hours. Dolan writes with crisp prose and twisty plotlines: 'Devin adjusts his grip on the handle of the knife and glides it across his skin like a bow on the strings of a violin.' A killer known as Merkury stalks random victims, leaving no trace of evidence behind, and the law scratching their heads. A solid story with hidden secrets, Don’t Turn Around is a five-star mystery that will keep you guessing." -- Thomas Grant Bruso > Lansing State Journal (July 7, 2024): "Full of intriguing plot twists that grab your attention, [Don't Turn Around ] will keep you flipping the pages in wonderment. . . . This is a compelling tale of death and deceit." -- Ray Walsh > Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine (Summer 2024): "A first-rate thriller . . . Dolan’s storytelling is mesmerizing, his pacing exquisite, his wide and varied cast of players all interesting and intriguing. Even as long held secrets are revealed, and relationships old and new are tested, Dolan works steadily to his stunning conclusion . . . Rating: A+" -- Hank Wagner |
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