Fasten your seat belts when you sit down with Only One Survives by Hannah Mary McKinnon. It’s a rocketing, riveting ride of a thriller.

The premise: young and poor Vienna Taylor pursues her dreams of success as a rock ‘n roll drummer with determination and grit. She and her BFF Madison Pierce form a duo with Madison on vocals and together, they truly rock. As devoted friends and ambitious musicians, the girls have their struggles. On the home front, there’s Vienna’s negligent mother, abusive stepfather and her long-suffering supportive Grams. For Maddy, it’s the pressure of rich, controlling parents who want their only daughter to have a ‘safer’ career.  

For both, the harsh realities of making it in today’s cutthroat music business demands a lot of tough decisions, both personally and professionally, and often their relationships with men, family, other musicians and each other are pushed to the limit. Vienna and Maddy’s challenges immediately draw you into their story. With compelling characters, a plot that makes you thirst for ‘what happens next’ and a liberal scattering of hints of darker deeds, this book will keep you reading long into the night.

Using the pivotal event of a terrible car accident one night involving the whole band – now numbering four talented female rockers, accompanied by a documentarian following their rise to fame and fortune – the story shoots back and forth in time to fill in background, as well as foreshadow and build suspense with every scene. McKinnon is a seasoned thriller writer with this her seventh novel and her expertise is on display as she confidently leads you down the twisted path toward Vienna and Madison’s shattering conclusion.

McKinnon’s clever use of social media bites, interview transcripts and media accounts interspersed with Vienna’s first-person narrative provides rich detail without giving away the final ‘who done it’ too soon. She carefully draws portraits, drops hints about what’s to come and then shifts focus with so many twists and turns that sometimes you may feel you have to keep notes. Indeed, the actions in the last quarter of the novel, as well as keeping track of some of the characters’ changing motivations do strain credulity, but what the heck? It’s a very fun thriller; more beach read than reflective literature, so just relax and enjoy the ride.

McKinnon appears in Chilling Tales: Thrilling Fiction with Amber Cowie and S.C. Lalli on Oct. 19. Tickets are available now. 

Review is by Deborah Folka. A life-long writer,  Folka  recently published In Zoey’s Closet, her first children’s book available at Armchair Books, the Whistler Public Library and on amazon.ca. She’s at work on the sequel. Stay tuned.