The Hard Case Crime series of books, has asked a number of well-known and respected authors to turn out detective novels, often with a noirish bent, but, although probably the most famous of the genres aspects, the traditional crime novel also explored infidelity, sexual tension and murder.

The Secret Lives of Married Women, by Elissa Wald is more in the vein of The Postman Always Rings Twice with its unveiling of the repressed sexual moirés of suburban life. Rather than create a single novel Wald has decided to turn in two novellas.

In The Man under the House we meet a housewife, telling her story in the first person. A failed actress, except for a notorious porn flick she moves into a new house with her Russian husband. From the first day she meets Jack who seems overeager to be alone in her company, turning up every day with some other excuse. Originally paid to decorate he continues to arrive with more help, offers of cheap wood and traps for vermin. The reader can only view the relationship through the eyes of Leda, Jack's intention via her reaction and feelings. Overtly, he is insistently intrusive, but does little that is suspect, but via Wald’s writing we feel the predatory sexual tension which builds to a climax.

In Adle’s Cane we have a very different kind of story, whereas the first is about repressed sexual feeling, the second story is a lot more explicit in its depiction, where desire is a punishment and punishment becomes desire. What connects the stories are the twin sisters, the once sexually liberated Leda who transformed from soft core porn star and her sister, Lillian, a sexually repressed lawyer preparing for the toughest trial of her life.

Both stories work well, building the anticipation in the reader, so what we are really looking for is how skillfully Wald is able to dovetail the two together to create a coherent whole. She nearly pulls it off, but personally the epilogue felt more tacked on than a binding conclusion.

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Charles Packer