The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives - Elizabeth Arnott

It's a great title for a thriller, but The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives promises more than it delivers. The impact on families of convicted killers is something not often considered and for which there is little in the way of help or support. Certainly not in the 1960s, which is the setting of Elizabeth Arnott's novel. How do you survive being the wife of a convicted serial killer? Beverley Lightfoot, wife of serial killer Henry James Lightfoot, who murdered seven women in the Bay Area of California between 1957 and 1963, feels a certain amount of guilt for not questioning her husband's suspicious behaviours. She takes little comfort from a small group of other women with similar experiences, and relating her experience in public events doesn't really seem to be enough. Her friend Margot, whose husband was a prominent politician and also a serial killer however tells her "We can't keep bad people from doing bad things". Or can they?

Beverley, Margot and Elsie, another friend whose husband was convicted of murders, wish they could do more, particularly as they suspect from some recent killings that another killer is currently active in the area. One other experience the three women have in common however - and in common with many other women of the time - is self-agency, control of their own lives, their destiny, their career and how others view them. They are women in a man’s world. Beverley however doesn't want to be defined by what her husband did, while Elsie is undervalued as a secretary at a newspaper, her natural ability and qualifications wasted. But Elsie is privy to information that others are not and decides to follow up a few leads on the killings that arrive in the office for herself.

The women's condition is very much tied to the times of course but Arnott takes the heavy-handed view, never missing an opportunity to emphasise how much women are undervalued, lack control over their own lives when they have much more to offer. Men, on the other hand, are invariably philanderers, murderers, abusive husbands and fathers, dissolute employers, patronising insensitive lovers and just plain creeps. There are some laughable efforts to stir the pot further with references to "It's a Man's World" by James Brown playing on the radio and just in case you miss the point, every couple of pages you will find a banal self-evident observation like "women have been moulding themselves to fit men's desires for centuries". 

There is of course a lot of truth in the observations, and certainly it would reflect these women's reaction to what they have personally experienced, but to paint it in such broad terms is a tedious and lazy trope for a novelist. Men are criticised for how they wield power and control and use it to exploit their position without the author ever taking a moment to consider - other than for one brief moment of reflection by Beverley - how women can be just as abusive in similar positions, and abusive towards other women as well. It's how power corrupts that is the problem, nothing to do with gender other than men traditionally having all the power, and certainly more so in the 1960s, which has evidently been chosen for that reason.

It's true though that when it comes to use and abuse of power, there are fewer women that have become serial killers. Putting aside the fact that this is not a serious exploration of such subjects but is just a cosy female feel-good girl-power thriller, once you get into the developing activities of the serial killer and into the progress these smart women make based on their own experiences, The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives does have the potential to become a decent thrilling murder mystery, finding other “industries” - movies, fashion, prostitution - where women are not only likely to be used and abused, but maybe even killed. The amateur investigation however, despite the lurid subject matter, is on the level of Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven or Famous Five with clues falling conveniently into their women's laps as they defy sceptical cops and do it themselves. Destined to become an unchallenging bestseller holiday read, it ends with crowd-pleasing but improbable "twist" and a Scooby-Doo ending you can see coming a mile off.

Reading notes: The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives by Elizabeth Arnott is published in hardcover by Viking on the 9th April 2026. It's already available to download as an eBook. I read a copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley.