 "The
Man with Two Wives"
by Patrick Quentin
Dell, 1955
Why did I pick up this book this
week? Well, with a title like The Man with Two Wives you'd
expect something along the lines of him having those two wives at once--something
nice and juicy to sink your teeth into. But as most classic tawdry paperbacks
turn out, the set up is so much better than the payoff. The back cover
reads: "Bill Harding led a pleasant and peaceful existence with an adoring
'perfect' wife and a secure future in his father-in-law's powerful publishing
empire. He had all but forgotten Angelica, his beautiful, tortured first
wife and the wild, Bohemian existence they had once shared. Now Angelica
was back. He had seen her. For one brief moment he had felt the old, abandoned
passion. That one slip from reason was his undoing. He was swept again
into Angelica's whole sordid, pitiful world. And finally, into murder."
The Man with Two Wives is your typical paperback suspense/mystery
that, like others, finds itself caught between the genres of sleeze and
noir. It has the proper number of femme fatales, torrid affairs and plot
twists, but stays away from those fun elements that could make it racier.
The lesson to be learned: Never pick your tawdry paperbacks by title alone.
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