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A FREE RANGE WIFE by Michael Kenyon

A FREE RANGE WIFE

By

Pub Date: July 1st, 1983
Publisher: Doubleday

Kenyon's latest idiosyncratic outing for poet/Inspector Henry Peckover (The Man at the Wheel, etc.) takes him to the French chateau country--where he's more or less on the trail of a killer/mutilator. Several men, you see, have been found dead in various spots, all with severe damage to their genitals. Could it be that promiscuous American wife Mercy McCluskey--a chateau resident--has a connection to all these victims? She denies this--and claims not to know where her hubby Hector is. But Peckover, after interviewing the widow of one of the victims, is sure that Mercy is the key to the case, especially when two more of her suitor/bedmates turn up gorily dead. And, despite a red herring or two, it's soon clear that manically jealous Hector is the culprit--so it's up to Peckover to bait a trap for the killer. . . by bedding Mercy, of course. With bits of Peckover's naughty light verse, a tad of slapstick, and lots of French food: a jaunty, somewhat silly black-comedy, more for fanciers of British high/ low-jinks than for mystery lovers.