After starting over my novel from scratch and jumping back into some serious plotting, it has recently occurred to me that an unreliable narrator would best fit my story (a historical thriller set in the late Victorian era).
The story is a first-person narrative told by an orphaned young woman in her mid to late teens. My goal is to present her to the reader as a sympathetic character utterly innocent of any foul play (accidents, theft, fire, etc.) until the climax when she is revealed to have played a hand in most or if not all of the sinister events of the story. Her motivations are money (in this case, her inheritance) and the contempt she has for her well-to-do cousin.
Excepting certain tropes of the Gothic genre, I am trying to work out the best way to avoid clichés and maintain suspense. I would really appreciate some advice on unreliable narrators and what pitfalls to watch out for.
It isn't the same era, but your question made me think of the narrator in "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" by Agatha Christie. If you haven't read it already, it might give you some pointers as how to disguise your protagonist's true character until the final chapter or two.