A Failed Feminist Murder Mystery
The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives by Elizabeth Arnott
Pages: 320 Genre: mystery
Rating: 2 Star
Bev, Elsie, and Margot have a friendship forged under uncommon circumstances: all of their husbands have been convicted of several murders. They are all coping in their own ways, and despite what everyone else seems to think, none of them truly knew what their husbands were up to. Then, when more murdered young women start to show up, these three women believe they can use their atypical knowledge of serial killers to catch the guy. And they need to do it before more women are killed.
I really enjoyed this book at the start. The writing — taking place in 1960s California — felt atmospheric and retro in a way I was really into. And the plot is fascinating, because this is an angle that's pretty unique. Around the halfway mark, it was clear that this was leaning more literary mystery than mystery thriller (the latter being the intended genre), and things got so much worse from there. It was slow, unclear, repetitive, and ultimately unimaginative.
One of the first things I noticed about this book was how white it felt. I am a white woman, and I know that white women (especially in the '60s) do have to deal with misogyny. But the way they described the struggles of women felt very specific to white women while ignoring existing privileges. You can tell by the cover that all three main characters are white, and two of them are initially also wealthy. Elsie makes a point to acknowledge how she feels othered in society because she is British, which made the racial uniformity very obvious. Also, the book has a random section that talks about police brutality. In theory, I would appreciate this given the role of the police, but this happens in such a vacuum. Bev gives some half-hearted commentary about how she knows there are some police who behave poorly while at a protest, and there's a very random story beat about a pig corpse to make the point that police are sometimes called pigs. There's no elaboration or connection to the main plot, and we swiftly move on. So why did we bring it up? It's the '60s! It's not a secret how the police were behaving then. Anyway, let's get back to the wealthy white women who are dealing with the real problems, I guess. I would just like a little bit more awareness on the author's behalf.
The mystery was unimpressive. Both the suspects and the investigation was bad. The way the main suspects are introduced blatantly ignores the rules of mysteries as they are introduced far too late, which ruins the "twist" because in a good book it would never be them. All of the suspects also feel very random. I can't say too much without spoiling it, but it's because the main focus isn't actually the mystery. The women stumble across all of their evidence, their own guesses don't matter at all, and none of the red herrings actually pay off.
One aspect of the mystery that was driving me insane was the way we were supposed to just accept the women being correct. There are five key murders, and they're all described very differently. But the book insists that they're all related. Reader, they are not. Yes, the descriptions of the characters are similar, but the way they are murdered is not. The women insist on the form of the murders having a clear link for the entire book. It's a whole thing. It's a whole piece of the conflict, even. But then, at the very end, a link is revealed, and it's treated like a reveal. Bev tells us that there's finally a connection. Finally?! Only one of us was arguing on behalf of a clear connection, and it wasn't me. This was driving me crazy for the whole time.
Okay, anyway.
Another aspect of this book was that there was a section every few chapters that I began to call the "taken" sections. This is a second person POV short chapter chronicling a woman who has been kidnapped, giving us scathing and very dramatic commentary on violent sexism. I love when books use second person POV, but this one wasn't very compelling. It felt very out-of-place with the rest of the writing and the plot, given that the story is about women who are killed, not kidnapped. The author just wanted to rant a little bit, I think.
As a whole, I really didn't enjoy the sexism commentary. First, it was far too modern. We needed to be shown instead of told, and we needed to not be talking as if we're living in 2026 when it's the 1960s. Second, I'm not moved by books where the main point seems to be that women are victims and men are perpetrators. The execution feels equally as misogynistic to me. I do get what we're going for, but it's not written well or displaying a true understanding of reality. There are men who are not evil and violent, but every man is a suspect for even the smallest reason. Even Bev's 7-year-old boy is judged for having large, aggressive tantrums. This is a 7-year-old whose father was dramatically arrested and convicted of killing multiple women. I don't think he's a secret psychopath, Bev, I think he's just 7 and traumatized. But he is a boy, and every man has that inherent violence inside of them, obviously.
There could've been really interesting commentary here, but in the same way it ignores non-white experiences, this book ignores every possible moment of nuance. Explore the culture that allows men to be so casually violent towards women and how its passed on to the next generation. Explore the reasons why, especially in the '60s, women would stay with their horrible husbands. Anything but treating it as if men are just inherently built that way — which is, to be clear, also misogyny.
The ending was inexcusable. There's no real tension because of the way everything plays out. We don't get any satisfying end to the mystery because there's no final confrontation. The dialogue is corny. The whole thing feels like it's written to be a movie instead of a book. All of this may be a letdown, but it became unforgivable with the epilogue. Bev gets inexplicable and unjustified character development. Everyone decides to just start treating Elsie better. And Margot (this may be considered a spoiler but nothing about it really matters to the plot so it's fine) "finally" gets a therapist that she is also dating! Isn't that so fun and quirky! That's not a major ethics violation or anything! I'm sure she's definitely healing.
Maybe I'm being a bit unfair, but none of the characters were that engaging to me. Bev was the only one who seemed to care about her husband being a serial killer. This may be realistic, but it's certainly worse writing in a book called "The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives." Elsie had potential but was ultimately very boring and also would've been a lot more interesting if she was gay. My biggest issue was with Margot. I hated her and her Girlboss Feminism. Being "cool" is really not feminist. It can be, I guess, but being attractive/sexually liberal and kind of abrasive to men isn't inherently a feminist act. She also will talk down to women who "live to please men" by doing things like wearing makeup or dressing up but is also super guilty of it. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not; if it was, it wasn't written well.
I'm sad about how this book ended up, because I did really enjoy it at the start. And when the writing — meaning the actual way sentences were crafted — was good, I did really love it. But there were far too many inconsistencies and the mystery was not put together well in the slightest. Also, I want to point it out but don't know where it fits into this review (probably because it's not at all relevant), but the title being a play on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives makes the whole thing feel so much less serious.
Comments