An upper-class British family. An ugly, yet magnificent country house. A weekend of affairs and arguments. And a murder that is as deceptive as a magician's illusion, far different from what it at first appears to be. These elements lie at the center of Peter Dickinson's extraordinary new novel, the richest we have from the mystery writer acknowledged as the master of the genre by his fellow authors on both sides of the Atlantic.

A perfect fusion of unfaltering suspense with dramatic revelation of characters shaped and mis-shaped by history and family, The Yellow Room Conspiracy is complex, clever, and absolutely chilling.

The novel opens with a final confessions between two aging lovers. Deciding there must be nothing hidden between them at the last, they will discover that each has believed the other committed the murder in the Yellow Room, the one that killed his oldest friend, Gerry Grantworth - the man who had been her most passionate obsession.

Their disturbing discovery will be that neither of them did it. Now together, in alternating reminiscences, they attempt to piece together the past: the five beautiful Vereker sisters, the men they slept with and wed, the mad days of World War II, and the alliances and dalliances that would turn deadly. From the playing fields of Eton to the intelligence sectors of the government during and after the war, Gerry Grantworth will emerge as more and more of a mystery.

He was a golden boy filled with promise - and with secrets about who he was, what he wanted, and what he was willing to do to get it. From its poignant beginning to its violent climax and its unexpected - in fact astonishing - resolution, The Yellow Room Conspiracy is superbly created fiction, an authentic re-creation of a privileged way of life both elegant and self-destructive, capable of subtle cruelties and carefully plotted murder. The result is Peter Dickinson at his incomparable best.