Secrets and lies in a proper English family lead to murder in a mesmerizing tale by England's Queen of Crime

It is the 1960s, but the "swinging sixties"revolution hasn't quite reached rural England. In an attempt to be closer to her English boyfriend, Kerstin Kvist accepts a job with the Cosway matriarch; her three unmarried daughters; and her son, John, a sad, self-absorbed figure in his thirties who haunts the grand house of Lydstep Old Hall, deep in the Essex countryside. There is a fourth daughter, too—a widow herself and apparently quite rich—who comes and goes infrequently, with ill-disguised contempt for the others.

Then, just as Kerstin is beginning to figure out the odd family, a stranger moves into the village, his very presence setting the Cosways on a path to self-destruction.

The Minotaur is Barbara Vine in top form.

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Barbara Vine is the author of such acclaimed novels as A Dark-Adapted Eye, Anna's Book, Grasshopper, and The Blood Doctor. She has won many awards for literary accomplishment, including three Edgar Awards and four Gold Daggers.