A crumbling mansion and an upper crust family in decline are at the center of the mesmerizing and unsettling events in “The Little Stranger.” Leisurely, atmospheric, and slightly ominous, this post WWII-era novel, set in Warwickshire, is a haunted house story that may or may not be a ghost story. Waters resists easy answers in this superbly –written tale of a dying way of life.

Recommended by Anne