Set around a criminal investigation, the novel focuses on a case that raises questions about identity and culpability when the accused exhibits signs of multiple personality or severe mental disturbance.

Philip Marlowe, a laconic private detective, is hired by an elderly wealthy client to look into a potentially embarrassing or criminal affair involving her family.

A solitary, resourceful man becomes both would-be assassin and hunted prey after attempting to kill a powerful foreign figure.

An unnamed young woman marries a wealthy widower and moves to his grand West Country estate, where she finds the household dominated by the presence and legend of his late first wife.

A professionally curious narrator pursues the life of a shadowy criminal figure across interwar European settings, following clues from travel and chance encounters to reconstruct motive and method.

The novel follows a single day in post–World War I London as a well-to-do woman readies an evening party while the narrative follows through multiple characters' inner thoughts and memories.

Set just after the First World War, the novel follows a country-house household when a wounded officer returns from the trenches with severe mental shock and memory loss.

A woman linked to an academic community returns to a college where puzzling acts and a climate of fear have erupted; an investigator connected to her seeks to discover who is behind the incidents and why.