The Woman on the Stairs

Bernhard Schlink's The Woman on the Stairs runs on taut suspense, as an unnamed elderly German lawyer rediscovers a painting that triggers a cascade of memories. Decades earlier, a femme fatale ensnared him in a romantic web, along with her affluent husband and a volatile artist, only to flee from them all. Seeing the painting again compels the protagonist to seek out his wayward muse, but their reunion doesn't play out quite the way he's fantasized.