Review: "The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives," Elizabeth Arnott

No one else wants to be friends with Beverley, Elsie and Margot. Their husbands were serial killers.

They first turn to each other for support, but when one young woman, and then another, and another, are murdered, they decide they have to do something.

Because who better knows the mind of a man who kills?

It’s 1966, and Los Angeles is simmering in a heat wave. Beautiful Beverley is able to keep up her middle-class lifestyle on the earnings she made as a teen model. But she is fearful, anxious and worries constantly about her two children. Her relationship with a police officer who was involved in her husband’s case only takes the edge off a little.

Beverley feels guilty, though she was not involved in her husband’s crime. Finding the killer of the young women, who is now at large, would help her find peace of mind as well as see justice served. 

Elsie is paving a new life for herself. She’s raised herself out of the typing pool at the L.A. Signal newspaper. But her new job as administrative assistant to the editor doesn’t get her the writing assignments she wants. When a new female crime reporter joins the staff, however, Elsie enlists her help. She wants to solve the crimes to prove her worth. And get a byline.

Glamorous Margot was married to a politician and lived the high life. She still has connections, and still looks the part in her designer wardrobe, but lives in a rundown apartment and works in a department store. Margot wants to pretend nothing is wrong, but she is searching for meaning in her life.

Told through their alternating perspectives, the women follow leads and clues, moving from lavish parties to trailer parks. The killer does bizarre things with the victims' bodies—one is strung from a porch. Another has an arrow put through her eye. What could it possibly mean? 

Beverley swallows her pride and buries her trepidations, to visit her husband in prison. She  has tried to remember what a good father he was, to separate that man from the murderer he became. But she faces him as the beast he is in an effort to gain more insight. Though she was married to a murderer, it turns out there’s more for her to learn

The women go down several wrong alleys and, naturally, antagonize the police. They almost break up because the tension is so great. But they stick it out, and stay together. They become fearless and a bit reckless. The resolution is horrifying, but it gives them a way to move forward with their lives—in more ways than one.