The Inner Shrine

"The Inner Shrine" by Basil King is a melodramatic tale of a woman's life blighted by slander. The book opens its first couple of chapters in France, where an older heroine's first husband dies in murky circumstances, and with much of the blame of his demise falling on her shoulders in the court of public opinion. Readers then shift to New York, where the challenge becomes to unite three pairs of lovers sundered by circumstance and social codes, though they all belong or once belonged to the social elite.