In the Spider's House

In British author Diamond's atmospheric fourth and final mystery (after Remember Me), Anna Howell, an author struggling with writer's block, moves to tiny Abbots Newton in Dorset, England, when her husband, Carl, is transferred to the area for work. The house she and Carl move into was previously occupied by a notorious murderer, Rebecca Fisher, who killed another child as a girl. Anna was already on the road to being a basket case before finding herself too often alone in a house described in a local history as having an "atmosphere where you could feel your mind turning restlessly in on itself, gnawing at its own tail for the sake of something to do." So it's not exactly a surprise when Anna becomes obsessed with the Fisher case and decides to write a book about it. Diamond (1975%E2%80%932014) tracks Anna's relentless search for details as well as her mental disintegration in this mordant study of compulsive behavior. (Mar.)