Reliable Wife A

Set in a small Wisconsin farming town crumbling under the impact of the troubled economic times of the 1890s A Reliable Wife tells the story of Ralph Truitt a wealthy businessman who advertises for “a reliable wife” in a Chicago newspaper. The woman who answers Catherine Land describes herself as “a simple honest woman” but in truth she is both complex and devious -- not the missionary’s daughter she describes in her letter but a courtesan of great beauty kept by men and haunted by a terrible past. Her plan in accepting the marriage offer is simple: she will win this man’s devotion and then over time poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on though is the passion she finds in this seemingly solid forthright man -- a man who also harbours secrets and whose past is far from pure.Filled with remarkable characters and drenched with colour and atmosphere A Reliable Wife is a story of love and madness longing and murder played out in a world that seems to have gone temporarily off its axis.