WIFE FOUND SLAIN

by Caroline Crane ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1981

Lyn Holdridge wakes up confused in a hospital bed, her face bandaged and wired--and, while someone in a hospital uniform seems to be menacing her, she regains her memory (in implausibly neat chronological order). Thus, she recalls herself at 19, taking a secretary job at a small N.Y. real estate office--where she soon falls in love with the boss, Owen Holdridge. He's married and 37, father of two, but an affair heats up, despite a brief hiatus when Lyn unsuccessfully tries to forget Owen in marriage to nice, young Joe Singleton. And then Owen's heavily insured, dumpy wife Ruth is found murdered in her Long Island home: Owen is arrested but acquitted (with alibi help from Lyn), and Lyn marries him. So now it's 12 years later--and someone's trying to kill Lyn. Who could it be? The reader, of course, catches on almost immediately; and Lyn's slowness is a wee bit exasperating. Eventually, however, she figures out that Owen is about to repeat himself (young girlfriend, heavy insurance on Lyn, hired hit-man) . . . and, through no particular effort of her own, she survives Owen's last-ditch homicide effort (arson), arriving at a dubiously pat happy ending. An old, old plot--remember, for instance, Humphrey Bogart in The Two Mrs. Carrolls?--but Crane (Coast of Fear) delivers it in agreeably crisp/foolish fashion.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1981

ISBN: 0595202446

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dodd, Mead

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1981

Categories: FICTION