THE MAIDENS

Alex Michaelides (Hachette, $32.99)

St Christopher’s College, Cambridge. For Mariana Andros – a group therapist struggling through her private grief – it’s where she met her late husband. For her niece, Zoe, it’s the tragic scene of her best friend’s murder. As memory and mystery entangle Mariana, she finds a society full of secrets, which has been shocked to its core by the murder of one of its own. Because behind its idyllic beauty is a web of jealousy and rage which emanates from a set of students known only as The Maidens.