Don't Turn Around - by Harry Dolan

Book Synopsis

The 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. But what did she really see?

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 was living with her parents. 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's far from 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.

Review Quotes

Praise for Don't Turn Around

"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 . . . Go ahead and suspend your disbelief. Every shiver will tell you it's worth it."--Kirkus Reviews

"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 . . . This is a solid, suspenseful thriller that demands heads-down until the last page is turned."--​John Valeri, Criminal Element

"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, Bookreporter

"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 . . . A solid story with hidden secrets, Don't Turn Around is a five-star mystery that will keep you guessing."--Thomas Grant Bruso, Press-Republican

Praise for Harry Dolan:

"In just five standalone novels, Dolan has garnered a reputation for intelligent plots that gently weave in action with his well-sculpted characters' believable motives and a soupçon of humor." --Associated Press, on The Good Killer

"Both action junkies and readers who like their thrillers on the cerebral side will find something to enjoy."--Publishers Weekly, on The Good Killer

"Block out sufficient time to read The Good Killer in one sitting. It'll be hard to stop once you get started."--BookPage, on The Good Killer

"Dolan is writing in the tradition of the great Elmore Leonard, and he does the master proud."--Joseph Finder, New York Times-bestselling author of House on Fire

"Dolan is an inventive, offbeat writer who manages to provide an entertaining mystery and a scary look at psychopaths who do horrific things to people."--Washington Post, on The Last Dead Girl

About the Author

HARRY DOLAN is the author of the mystery/suspense novels Bad Things Happen (2009), Very Bad Men (2011), The Last Dead Girl (2014), The Man in the Crooked Hat (2017), and The Good Killer (2020). He graduated from Colgate University, where he majored in philosophy and studied fiction-writing with the novelist Frederick Busch. A native of Rome, New York, he now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.