Book Review: Hannah Deitch delivers twisty thrills with debut novel, ‘Killer Potential’

When bestselling psychological thriller writer Paula Hawkins (“The Girl on the Train,” 2015) stamps the cover of your debut novel with “A Thelma & Louise for our times,” your career is off to a fast start.

The same goes for the plot pace of Hannah Deitch’s book, “Killer Potential,” which opens at a breakneck clip and doesn’t really slow down for about 200 pages. Evie Gordon is our narrator. She went to “a liberal arts school, stupidly expensive,” and is now working as an SAT tutor in pricey California zip codes. Her first sentence is a gem: “I was once a famous murderess.” The rest of the book reveals how she earned that appellation and the adverb “once.”

The opening scene is at “The Victor House,” which Evie describes in great detail — its “live-edge table cut from Portuguese wood,” the “De Gournay hand-painted silk wallpaper,” and the “aquamarine Moroccan tile in the bathroom.” It’s where Evie discovers the dead bodies of Dinah and Peter Victor, the mother with her face bashed in and the father floating in a koi pond. As Evie flees, she hears a voice crying out for help and rescues a woman trapped behind a door under a staircase, before coming face-to-face with her tutoring student, Serena. Thinking Evie and her accomplice are killers fleeing the scene of their crime, Serena attacks with a lamp and the scene ends with Evie smashing a vase against Serena’s head before escaping with the mystery woman in Evie’s car.

Cue the Hans Zimmer soundtrack for the next 100+ pages as Evie gets to know her partner in crime, who doesn’t speak at first, traumatized by whatever happened to her in the house. Eventually we learn her name, Jae, and together they pull off a series of crimes, some petty (shoplifting, carjacking), some not (assaulting and shooting at a few men and boys who recognize them from TV). Throughout it all, Evie’s inner monologue keeps readers engaged as she ponders things like how the language of courtship (Chase. Pursue. Stalk.) mirrors the language of hunting. It’s clear after a while that Evie and Jae lust for one another and when that dam finally breaks, the novel takes on a torrid tone that feels authentic for two people on the run for weeks relying on only each other and their animal instincts to survive.

Of course, Paula Hawkins doesn’t blurb your book unless there’s a well-earned twist, and “Killer Potential” delivers on that front. The final third or so of the novel is a real joy to read as Deitch fills in all the blanks using different narrative techniques. Saying anything more would spoil the fun, but “Killer Potential” earns Deitch a spot on the “new novelists to watch” list.

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