DON'T TURN AROUND

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.