Evie’s life hasn’t quite gone to plan, in spite of her firm belief in social mobility. Though highly intelligent and academically gifted, she now finds herself adrift and in a limbo-like state with no real grasp of direction or vocation. To get by, she tutors a bored adolescent, the offspring of a wealthy Los Angeles power couple; a one-percenter family with it all. Arriving one day for her tutoring session, Evie finds the wealthy parents have been brutally murdered. While she is still in the mansion, she makes the startling discovery of a young woman tied up in a closet.

Any sense of her ‘good Samaritan’ actions in freeing the traumatised young woman are quickly shot to pieces. Spotted leaving the house rather than summoning emergency services, Evie is accused of the murders, sparking a huge manhunt. Ironically, now labelled a neo-Charles Manson, Evie has finally achieved status, albeit disastrously.

Gradually, Evie and her mute companion begin to trust each other, forming a deeper bond in their shared experiences as fugitives on the run. As is typical for the genre, all that glitters is not gold, and the depravity of Evie’s wealthy employers is exposed.

There’s quite a lot going on in this book: social inequality, sensationalist media (one quick to ignore physical evidence in a quest for truth), a queer love story, sexual and physical abuse, trafficking, murder, to say nothing of Evie’s floundering sense of identity. Admittedly though, this book is quite a lot of fun. Killer Potential succeeds in being totally serious and insightful while at the same time completely ridiculous. Read this if you enjoy gallows humour, or if you loved the antics of Thelma & Louise, but also if you read Emma Styles’ No Country for Girls.