The scold's bridle (1994)

The suspicious death of an older woman brings Dr Sarah Blakeney into a household marked by cruelty, dependency and missing diaries. Walters lets the medical relationship complicate the easy account of what happened. Read this for the uncomfortable question of who gets listened to when a difficult person also needs care. There is a police investigation and a more elaborate mystery than in Fremlin or Holding; the bodily detail and history of abuse make the domestic tensions unusually harsh.