Barbara Vine: The House of Stairs (USA 1990)

From the Publisher:
"GRIPPING AND EVOCATIVE... BARBARA VINE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST WRITERS WE HAVE." -- Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent
The beautiful, elusive Christabel Sanger is a murderer just released from prison. But whom has she killed? Elizabeth Vetch will never forget what happened fourteen years ago in the grand old house on Notting Hill called the House of Stairs.

In that large, oddly built residence, Elizabeth was living with her recently widowed cousin, Cosette, and with a long, unending party of fascinating people and hangers-on who came in and out of their lives. And in that dwelling a terrible, cruel plot would unfold and climax in betrayal and murder.

But who was killed... and what is the real mystery in this chilling novel of psychological suspense -- which twists and turns with the deadly desires of the human heart...?

"EXCELLENT, MARVELOUS, INGENIOUS!" -- Martha Grimes, author of The Old Silent
"A WHYDUNIT, PLUS A DONEWHAT. DOSTOYEVSKY WROTE THE FIRST, BUT BARBARA VINE IS A MASTER PRACTITIONER OF THE GENRE." -- The New York Times Book Review

Barbara Vine: The House of Stairs. Onyx Books, ISBN: 0451402111 (August, 1990), 331 p., $4.95.