18. Net of Cobwebs by Elizabeth Sanxsay Holding

This is the second Elizabeth Sanxsay Holding I've read, from the two-book volume put out by Stark House and written later in her career, 1945, than The Death Wish (1934).  It's the story of a young man, Malcolm Drake, living with his upper class family while recovering from shell shock due to his time in the navy during the war.  He is already all up in his head and addicted to pills, interacting in a paranoid way with his aunt, sister, brother and his borther's wife.  Again, it has that weird disassociated perspective that I found in The Death Wish that kind of distances me from the material, though in this case it fits better as the character himself is struggling mentally.  I won't get into the plot here beyond that his Aunt dies and then other people die and except that he is the viewpoint of the book it is entirely possible that Drake himself is the killer.

This is solid, disturbing and entertaining.  I will keep looking for her books.  None of the covers below are the one I have, but I like to imagine the time when you could easily see this book in a bookstore and one of her novels was sort of mainstream and well-respected.