So, based on its promise of intrigue, the next novel I'm reading is Denise Harris' Web of Secrets. Here's its opening paragraph again:
"... My opinion is that perhaps the whole thing started from that first ambush which happened so long ago that we have literally cast it aside... People ambushed against their wills, collared and brought by force to this country with only memories to carry them through... a place one would not put a name to from the very beginning, and even those memories had to be concealed and pressed down on for the sake of survival, but then those same memories would one day ambush us in return, as I see it, and don't take my word as gospel, but as I see it, Kathleen Harriot imagining she was seeing cracks was in fact ambushed by memories that were thought to be dead and buried and in fact were only lying low, as they resurfaced and then things started happening... it's a matter of psychology. I lived on the same street with the Harriots. When I saw what became of her I said to myself it's all a matter of psychology... it may sound far-fetched, but what you think, Gladys, after all you were friends with Kathleen Harriot, what you think?"