Taste of Fears, by Margaret Millar

Lucille is the second wife of a doctor, Andrew. His first wife, Mildred, died under mysterious circumstances sixteen years ago. Mildred and Lucille were close friends. A small package is delivered by hand to Lucille, who takes it to her bedroom, screams, and runs out of the house. She doesn't come back...

Margaret Millar was a popular mystery writer in the 1950s who has now fallen out of fashion. She was married to Ross McDonald; I bet dinners at their house were really something. This was my first book by her so I'm not sure how typical it is. There is a mystery but it's more a work of psychological suspense. The structure is a bit unusual, in three parts, and the third section and to a lesser degree the second sags a bit. It's written in a very well-handled omniscient POV and a rather distant, chilly sensibility.

What's really notable is the prose, which is fantastic.

She had the subtle but supreme vanity that often masquerades under prettier names, devotion, unselfishness, generosity. It lay in the back of her mind, a blind, deaf, and hungry little beast that must always be fed indirectly through a cord.

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