Skip to main content

The Widower's Wife

Review

The Widower's Wife

THE WIDOWER’S WIFE is a terrific mystery. Author Cate Holahan’s sophomore effort surpasses DARK TURNS, her highly regarded debut novel, by taking a different direction in the classic mystery genre and creating a new --- and hopefully returning --- protagonist along the way.

The narrative alternates throughout most of the book between the points of view of the two primary characters --- one in the present and one in the past. The present is the province of a very tough but fair insurance investigator named Ryan Monahan, a former police officer who was injured in the line of duty and misses the life he had before. He is also a numbers guy, having an encyclopedic knowledge of the odds of this and the percentage of that, which he shares with the reader from beginning to end. His viewpoint in the book alternates with that of Ana Bacon, who, while on a cruise ship vacation with her husband, went overboard and was lost at sea. Ana had a life insurance policy with Monahan’s principal in the amount of five millions dollars, which included a double indemnity clause in the event of an accident. Ana’s widowed husband, Tom, is now seeking payment under the policy on behalf of Sophia, the couple’s young daughter and beneficiary.

"Holahan has somehow created an insurance company employee who is a sympathetic character --- almost unheard of in today’s mystery genre --- and hopefully we will see more of him in the future."

Monahan is investigating the claim on behalf of the insurance company because insurance companies are in the business of selling policies, not paying on them. He almost immediately smells a rat after meeting Tom, but there doesn’t seem to be much he can do about it, given that Tom has a seemingly unbreakable alibi for where he was when Ana fell to her destiny. Plus, there are disinterested witnesses to her fall. 

Monahan is still bothered by a number of factors, including the precarious financial situation of the Bacons, their relationship, and that really attractive “cousin” of Tom’s who seems to have taken up residence in their house. He learns that Tom, a former Wall Street hotshot, had experienced a fall from grace on the Street due to a high risk trade that cost his company dearly, to the extent that he is all but unemployable in his profession of choice. Ana had returned to work, but her salary as an administrative assistant did not come close to making the monthly nut on the couple’s dream mansion and all the expenses that come with it. Tom, according to the neighborhood gossips, was always busy doing something other than being where he was supposed to be, and a surprising source advises Monahan that his “cousin” is not a cousin at all. Monahan keeps digging, and with some assistance from his former colleagues on the force, he starts to arrive at some semblance of the truth.

Meanwhile, we slowly learn from Ana, some months in the book’s past, what the events were that led up to the state of affairs --- literally --- in the story’s present. The alternating narratives provide a nice touch, and Holahan does a terrific job of occasionally throwing her reader a “but what about…” bone only to answer the question later, as the story races to an exciting and ironic conclusion.

I had about several guesses as to what had happened in THE WIDOWER’S WIFE, and while one of them was right, I had discarded it as implausible by the time I discovered that I was on the money after all. It is Ryan Monahan, however, who ultimately makes the book. Holahan has somehow created an insurance company employee who is a sympathetic character --- almost unheard of in today’s mystery genre --- and hopefully we will see more of him in the future.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub on August 26, 2016

The Widower's Wife
by Cate Holahan

  • Publication Date: August 9, 2016
  • Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
  • ISBN-10: 1629537659
  • ISBN-13: 9781629537658