ldquo;A genuinely surprising whodunit.” —USA Today

“Inspired by a real-life unsolved mystery, this mesmerizing novel features characters that make a lasting impression.” —People

“Fresh and imaginative. . . . A sordid portrait of mobsters and mayhem, corruption and carnage, greed and graft . . . [Lawhon] slyly builds the suspense to a stunning revelation.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
 
“Ariel Lawhon has concocted a stylish homage to noir in The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress. This fun, fast-paced novel has it all: speakeasies, gangsters, show girls, and not one, not two, but three women scorned. A real page-turner.” —Melanie Benjamin, bestselling author of *The Aviator's Wife

• “This book is more meticulously choreographed than a chorus line. It all pays off. Clues accumulate. Each scene proves important. Everyone lies. Once the rabbit is out of the hat, everything takes on a different texture, reorganizes and makes sense. A second reading, like a second cocktail, is almost better than the first.” —Chelsea Cain, The New York Times Book Review

  “A gripping, fast-paced noir novel. . . . Lawhon brings fresh intrigue to this tale. . . . [and] captures a New York City period full of high-kicking showgirls, mob-linked speakeasies and Tammany Hall political scandal.” —Associated Press

  “A romp through New York in the late ’20’s. . . . Populated by gangsters and crooked politicians, society ladies and dancers, this story is nothing like your day-to-day life and yet . . . you will find the three women mentioned in the title strangely recognizable.” —Charlotte Observer

  “A page-turner filled with glitz and glamour as well as murder, greed, and deceit.” —Romantic Times 

  “The twists and turns in the tale of lust, greed, and deceit keep you guessing until the final pages. . . .The Nancy Drew in you can’t wait to solve the artfully hidden clues in this historical mystery.” —Daily Candy

  “Juicy. . . . A plummy, pernicious mystery. . . . Reads like a cross between Sue Monk Kidd and Beth Hoffman.”—Chapter16.org

  “A great story, told with verve and feeling. . . . Lawhon walks one of fiction’s trickiest tightropes, creating a novel that is both genuinely moving and full of pulpy fun.” —Booklist

  “Vivid and unsettling, with a finale as startling as the pop of a gun.” —Caroline Leavitt, bestselling author of Pictures of You and Is This Tomorrow

  Autorentext

  Ariel Lawhon

  Klappentext

  From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia comes a novel that tantalizingly reimagines a scandalous murder mystery that rocked the nation.

  One summer night in 1930, Judge Joseph Crater steps into a New York City cab and is never heard from again. Behind this great man are three women, each with her own tale to tell: Stella, his fashionable wife, the picture of propriety; Maria, their steadfast maid, indebted to the judge; and Ritzi, his showgirl mistress, willing to seize any chance to break out of the chorus line.

  As the twisted truth emerges, Ariel Lawhon's wickedly entertaining debut mystery transports us into the smoky jazz clubs, the seedy backstage dressing rooms, and the shadowy streets beneath the Art Deco skyline.

  Zusammenfassung
  From the New York Times bestselling author of The Frozen River, this “genuinely surprising whodunit” (USA Today) reimagines the tantalizing suspense surrounding a scandalous murder mystery that rocked the nation.

  “This book is more meticulously choreographed than a chorus line. It all pays off.”—The New York Times Book Review

  One summer night in 1930, Judge Joseph Crater steps into a New York City cab and is never heard from again. Behind this great man are three women, each with her own tale to tell: Stella, his fashionable wife, the picture of propriety; Maria, their steadfast maid, indebted to the judge; and Ritzi, his showgirl mistress, willing to seize any chance to break out of the chorus line.

  As the twisted truth emerges, Ariel Lawhon’s wickedly entertaining debut mystery transports us into the smoky jazz clubs, seedy backstage dressing rooms, and shadowy streets beneath the Art Deco skyline.

  Leseprobe
  9780385537629|excerpt

  Lawhon / THE WIFE, THE MAID, AND THE MISTRESS

  Club Abbey, Greenwich Village, August 6, 1969

  WE BEGIN IN A BAR. We will end here as well but that is more than you need to know at the moment. For now, a woman sits in a corner booth waiting to give her confession. But her party is late, and without an audience she looks small and alone, like an invalid in an over-sized church pew. It’s not so easy for her, this truth telling, and she strains against it. A single strand of pearls—brittle and yellowed with age—rests against the flat plane of her chest. She rolls them between her fingers as though counting the beads on a rosary. Stella Crater has avoided this confession for thirty-nine years. The same number of years she has been coming to this bar.

          
  Not long ago this meeting would have been a spectacle, splashed across the headlines of every paper in New York: Wife of Missing Judge Meets with Lead Investigator, Tells All! But the days of front-page spreads, interviews, and accusations are over, filed away in some distant archive. Tonight her stage is empty.
          
  Stella looks at her watch. Nine-fifteen.

          
  Club Abbey was once a speakeasy during the Jazz age, and is now another relic in Greenwich Village, peddling its former glory through the tourist guides. It sits one floor below street level, dark and subdued. Scuffed pine floors. Black and white photos line the walls. An aging jukebox has long since replaced the jazz quartet. The only remnant is Stan, the bartender. He was fifteen when hired by notorious gangster Owney Madden to sweep the floors at closing. Owney took a liking to the kid, as did the showgirls, and Stan’s been behind the bar ever since. He’s never missed Stella’s ritual. His part is small, but he plays it well.

          
  Two lowball glasses. Twelve cubes of ice split between them. Crown Royal on the rocks. Stan arranges napkins on her table and sets the glasses down. Her eyes are slick with a watery film—the harbinger of age and death. 
          
  “Good to see you again, Mrs. Crater.”

   Stella swats him away with an emaciated hand and he hangs back to watch, drying glasses with a dishtowel. It’s the same thing every year: she sits alone in her booth for a few minutes and then he brings the drinks. Straight whiskey, the way her husband liked it. She’ll raise one glass, saluting the empty place across from her, and say, “Good luck, Joe, wherever you are.” Stella will take her time with the drink, letting it burn, drawing out the moment until there’s nothing left in her glass. That is when she’ll rise and walk out, leaving the other drink untouched.

          
  Except tonight she does none of these things.

   Fifteen minutes she sits there, rubbing the rim of her glass. Stan has no script for what to do next and he stares at her, confused. He doesn’t see the door swing open or the older gentleman enter. Doesn’t see the trench coat or the faded gray fedora. Sees none of it until Detective Jude Simon slides into the booth across fro…