The following paperback was published in the dark Middle Ages when cover artists were seldom identified. There’s not even a hint of a signature to use as a clue. As far as the cover is concerned, look closely. This is one that tells a complete story, in and of itself.

Anna Clarke: The Poisoned Web

CHARTER. Reprint paperback, May 1990. Hardcover edition: St. Martin’s, 1982. Prior UK hardcover edition, Collins Crime Club, 1979.

      From the back cover:

LOSING PATIENCE
———
Once Patience Merriman had been the toast of Oxford. But now
the professor’s aging widow is confined to a wheelchair, and she
aims her bitterness at anyone within range. She ridicules her
daughter Romola. She schemes to destroy the romance between
the two young students boarding upstairs. And her latest ploy is
promoting the scurrilous suggestion that her own daughter
intends to do her in. Once the accusation is made, though,
she wonders if she’s made a mistake. This suggestion
might be too good to pass up…
———
A MASTER OF MYSTERY
———
Anna Clarke has joined the ranks of Dorothy Salisbury Davis,
P. D. James, and Josephine Tey in capturing our imagination with
crimes of the heart. Her successful series of detective fiction
shows us once again that the dark deed of murder is born in the
place of our deepest passion.