If you loved how Charles Hayward patiently sifted statements and alibis around the Leonides mansion—testing Brenda’s story against Laurence Brown’s, weighing what Josephine “saw” in her notebook—then you’ll relish the way solicitor Robert Blair unpicks a tangle of accusations here. Like the Swinly Dean case, the tension comes from interviews, tiny contradictions, and the unsettling question of who’s manipulating the narrative.

If the revelation about Josephine—her cool, clinical logic and how it recast Brenda’s affair, the nanny’s cocoa, and those staged “attacks”—made you gasp, this one will hit the same nerve. Every casual remark and clue is doing double duty, and when the truth lands, you’ll look back at each chapter exactly the way you reconsidered the Leonides case once the mask slipped.

If you were gripped by the unnerving psychology in the Leonides home—Sophia’s level-headed control, Magda’s theatrical self-absorption, and especially Josephine’s icy detachment—this novel pushes that unease even deeper. It’s less about whodunit than why, tracing the same kind of quiet, fatal misreadings that let a killer hide in plain sight in the Leonides family.

If you enjoyed juggling the Leonides ensemble—Magda’s dramatics, Philip’s sourness, Roger’s strain, Brenda’s vulnerability, and the children underfoot—this delivers that same pleasure of reading a room full of suspects. The tension builds as alliances shift and private histories surface, much like watching the Leonides household turn inward after Aristide’s poisoning.

If the intimate Swinly Dean setting—corridors, bedrooms, studies, and that nursery where Josephine kept her notes—made the mystery feel deliciously close-quartered, this classic scratches the same itch. You’ll track alibis across rooms, weigh overheard conversations, and feel that locked-in pressure that made the Leonides household so compelling.