Edgar Award-nominated author Alison Gaylin has a twisted tale of deadly family secrets in “Never Look Back.” (William Morrow, 339 pages)

In the 1970s, a teenage couple, April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy, went on a killing spree in Southern California similar to the murders committed by Charles Starkweather and his accomplice two decades earlier.

Film critic Robin Diamond is shocked when her father and mother are shot in their home. But even more shocking is the revelation from young podcaster Quentin Garrison. He suspects Robin’s flower-child mother may be the infamous spree killer April Cooper and that the shootings in her parents’ home was just a continuation of April Cooper’s violent streak.

Gaylin writes a psychological thriller with enough subplots to keep the reader’s attention. In a script that makes “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” seem tame, this drama of a dysfunctional family with a shocking past is a great book to read, but perhaps not right before the summer’s family reunion.