To Kill A Wife

Maybe everyone would be better off without her… 

Verna Hume isn’t an easy woman to be around. Her husband, Martin, knows that all too well.

Their marriage had long since died and out of spite, Verna refuses to give Martin the divorce he wants.

And in the meantime, she has numerous affairs with other men – her latest man, one Hugh Pearson of Pearson’s Electronics.

It’s then that Martin thinks: I could just kill her.

As he toys with plans to kill her, he feels a new lease of life. Everything from his career to his social life is on the up.

He starts an affair of his own – with Verna’s sister, Sue; a single mother to a wonderful little boy. 

Oblivious to everything but her future with Hugh, Verna completely ignores Martin going away for the weekend.

To his surprise, when Martin returns home, he finds Verna dead; to add to the irony, he’s arrested for her murder.

It seems an easy case to the police but DI Dennis Peach doesn’t think Martin did it. And his partner Lucy Blake is in agreement.

As the pair soon discover, Verna Hume had many enemies other than Martin and Sue.

There’s her long-time business partner and friend, Barbara Harris, who had a nasty disagreement with Verna the day before her death.

There’s Hugh Pearson, who while happy to sleep with Verna was not keen on Verna’s insistence that they get married and set up home together.

There are her own parents, her father and stepmother – Dean and Alice Osbourne – whom, Verna treated awfully.

And then there are all her ex-lover. 

It’s clear that Martin is innocent, his alibi watertight, and so it’s up to Peach and Blake to uncover the real murderer.

To Kill A Wife is a suspenseful and thrilling murder mystery.

“A novel in the best traditions of provincial murder” – The Observer 

“Thoroughly enjoyable” – Mail on Sunday 

“A nifty piece of craftsmanship” – The Scotsman 

'Lambert and Hook…gritty realism and hard-to-solve mysteries' — Booklist 

'…the series is recommended for its gritty realism and hard-to-solve mysteries' — Booklist 

'Well done, suspenseful and engaging' — Library journal 

'For Morse fans grieving the recent demise of their hero Gregson makes an agreeable successor…' — Booklist 

'…compelling characters who deserve the attention of procedural fans' — Booklist 

James Michael Gregson taught for twenty-seven years in schools, colleges and universities before concentrating on full-time writing. He has written books on subjects as diverse as golf and Shakespeare. His other crime novels include Stranglehold and Body Politic and he is much in demand as a lecturer and public speaker. To Kill A Wife is his third Inspector Peach novel. Most of these are set in his adopted county of Gloucestershire, in the attractive country of the Forest of Dean and the southern Cotswolds.