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A stylish and engrossing thriller, this terrific murder mystery hits all the right notes, starting with a premise that is both tantalizing and original.

We all know that murderers’ lives have been commercialized, sensationalized and documented far more thoroughly than the lives of their victims. But what of murderer’s wives — those invisible voices, victims themselves, brutalized in ways that leave a trail both obvious and psychologically complex.

In this clever story, we will meet Beverly, Margot, and Elsie: three wives whose husbands have been indicted for vicious and unimaginable serial killings. The women spring to life as they tell us their terrible stories — and band together to solve a new and terrifying stream of senseless killings.

Set in sunny California in the swinging sixties, our heroines are an evocative mixture of women of the times— culturally minimized, coiffed and confused, they are in turn self-identified as beauty objects; insecure housewives; and blazing, pent-up, just-let-me-prove-myself feminists.

As the murders stack up, suspense and suspects build, and the danger level rises, the author keeps things moving briskly — right up to a beautifully-rendered ending, which (although this reader did guess the eventual twist) was as harrowing as it was entertaining.

A great big thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.