Ten tales of married life: happy, sad, and blood-soaked

Clarke Wellington supposes it’s time he murdered his wife. Dolly isn’t a promiscuous woman, and she isn’t violent, but she is stingy, petty, and cruel, and she runs her household with a tyranny that has turned her husband into a mouse and her children into frightened little automatons. Of course, it’s easy to make this kind of decision, but much harder to follow through. When a man hasn’t stood up for himself in years, how can he possibly learn to kill?

“The Man Who Killed His Wife” is just one in this sterling collection of short stories by a master of the classic mystery novel. Rinehart tells her tales one couple at a time, from the Wellingtons to the Bryces to the Chisholms. In some of their houses is physical violence, and in some, the torment is purely emotional. Not until death will these happy couples part, but that day is coming sooner than some of them think.