Lining Up Suspects for the Disappearing Perfect Wife

Such a Perfect Wife by Kate White

I started reading Such a Perfect Wife (Harper) late on a Sunday night, and boy was that a bad idea. The end of each chapter left cliffhanger after cliffhanger until I was losing sleep from racing through the book. Such a Perfect Wife by Kate White is the murder mystery story of Shannon Blaine, the perfect, blonde, churchgoing wife with two kids. She runs every single morning after dropping her kids at school, but one day never returns. Is it the husband – who seems genuinely grief-stricken? What about the deacon of her church? He’s an old friend of Shannon’s but acts evasively when the investigation requires him to answer some questions. Or is it the motel owner who watched her run by every single day? A classic whodunnit case of a missing woman turns into a deadly chase for reporter Bailey Weggins. But when her reporting lands her a strange voice-altered phone call with an odd clue to what could have happened to Shannon, she and fellow journalist Alice Hatfield go exploring. What they find leads to more confusion and two more dead bodies in a peculiar place, Shannon’s church retreat.

Though I tend to shy away from murder mysteries this novel drew me in immediately. While the desire to know what happened and why propels the plot, the details of the setting and characters are what keeps the reader turning the page. White’s description of Alice Hatfield is so strong that I could see everything about her in my mind’s eye — including her ferocious eyebrows.

The detail provides a level of realism that makes this novel so perfectly relatable. Bailey’s thought process and fears make complete sense. As she gains more traction on the investigation and grows more confident, we as readers grow more confident in her. Such a Perfect Wife is a truly new spin on a classic woman-gone-missing story that is refreshingly personal and plot-driven. Such a Perfect Wife is out May 7, 2019.