Possibly Mary Renault should stick with ancient and mythological Greece. I adored both The King Must Die and The Persian Boy, and then this (along with Boy) was on the Triangle list too.
Renault said (according to the book's preface) that she always wrote what she wanted, without concern for censorship, but this book takes some disjointed turns that seem forced by publishing mores rather than by the characters' various motivations. Furthermore, it has one of the most moving heterosexual love scenes I've ever read, and no homosexual ones: Renault knew what was publishable.
The introduction alleges she wrote it in response to The Well of Loneliness, which I haven't read, and The Children's Hour, of which I've seen a non-Bowdlerized cinematization, and that she meant to get across the message that homosexuality doesn't have to be miserable or end miserably. I don't think she succeeded, and I'm a bit surprised at the book's inclusion on the Triangle list, because she as much as says she doesn't agree, or care that, Silence = Death.
Well-constructed; lovely writing; a little more of people's being able to read whole personas and deduce complex motivations from a glimpse of an expression than sits well with me; not as much of a collapse of credibility as production codes demanded of "Suspicion" and "Rebecca" but certainly wobbly.*
* Mr. Rochester isn't the most desirable of partners either. Hollywood did not give Joan Fontaine the nicest husbands.