"The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives" by Elizabeth Arnott is our "GMA" Book Club pick for March.
Arnott, an award-winning journalist based in London, has also written historical fiction under the name Lizzie Pook. Her work has appeared in publications including The Sunday Times, National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review and The Guardian.
Set in 1966 California, "The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives" centers on three unlikely friends -- Beverley, Elsie and Margot -- whose ex-husbands are convicted killers.
As a string of new murders rocks their community and police efforts stall, the women decide to investigate themselves, convinced they may be uniquely qualified to spot a predator.
"They know people look at them and think only one thing: How could they not have known what their husbands were doing? How much are they to blame?" a synopsis read. "And yet when a string of local killings hits the news, the three women --underestimated, overlooked, shrewd -- decide to get to work. After all, who better to catch a killer than those who have shared their lives and homes with one?"
Blending suspense with a sharp look at female friendship, "The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives" explores themes of guilt, blame and resilience.
Read an excerpt below and get a copy of the book here.
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This month, we are also teaming up with Little Free Library to give out free copies in Times Square and at 150 locations across the U.S. and Canada. Since 2009, more than 300 million books have been shared in Little Free Libraries across the world. Click here to find a copy of "The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives" at a Little Free Library location near you.
Read along with us and join the conversation all month on our Instagram account, @GMABookClub, and with #GMABookClub.
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THE SUN WAS sharp the day Elsie first met Margot and Beverley.
She held a palm to her eyes, cowered in its shade, felt as if the rays might slice her skin.
She’d worn a new silk blouse for the occasion, something she’d never normally choose, and the tiny buttons at the back of her neck scratched terribly, as if the outfit knew it didn’t belong on her.
She’d rolled the sleeves back in a vain bid to cool herself down, and her freckled forearms had already started to redden.
Her English complexion would never get used to the California heat.
She’d glanced nervously at her shoes as she stood on the doorstep of what she knew was Beverley’s house, the house Bev had described in the letters they’d been exchanging for months.
As soon as Beverley opened the door -- with that wide, beautiful face, those swimming- pool eyes, that thick head of blonde hair -- she’d felt frumpy.
Bev’s house, too, was beautiful, filled with the sorts of products Elsie could never afford herself: a Sony TV, a pink Bell Princess telephone -- the one with the light-up dial that seemed unnecessarily showy.
She was led through the hallway to the kitchen, passing a living room filled with mustard furniture and that print of the beautiful Chinese woman that all fashionable people seemed to own.
She’d practically balked when she’d seen the striking red- haired woman who must have been ten years older than her and Beverley leaning against the kitchen counter, a cigarette held to scarlet- painted lips.
The smoke curled around her like something from those movie billboards you saw on Rodeo Drive.
The woman lowered the cigarette and flashed a white smile. The kitchen clock ticked loudly above their heads. Elsie had been stunned.
This was not what she had expected the women -- who had experienced exactly what she had experienced -- to look like.
In her mind, they were meek and apologetic. Women you wouldn’t look at twice on the street. Women who could be trampled by men, conned, deceived. Women just like her.
Beverley had poured Elsie a drink, and the afternoon slipped into evening in a haze of Chardonnay and vodka cocktails. Elsie was not used to drinking cocktails.
She spent her evenings with Dickens, and Archimedes’ tangrams. So her thoughts soon felt fluid, dizzy. They ate food that Bev had prepared -- a frozen Sara Lee lasagne -- no one commenting on the fact that it was hugely overcooked, and they discussed their lives, their husbands, their unique and horrific shared experience.
Elsie had to pinch herself on more than one occasion; things she had always concealed, things she had never dared share with anyone, were being splayed and dissected as if the women were chewing over the latest episode of "Naked City."
She had been struck by the intimacy of it all.
Until then, her past had been a secret stored against her skin, hidden from sight, a private responsibility. In meeting them, she would have to cut herself open, show the blood.
Margot, Elsie had felt, was overloud and, if she was honest, a bit obnoxious; she certainly didn’t seem as affected by her husband’s crimes as the gentler Beverley, who seemed so poised, so put together, but whose childlike vulnerability slipped out now and then.
Bev had seemed to flinch whenever Margot derided their husbands.
“They’re animals,” Margot had quipped plainly, dabbing the corner of her mouth with a pinkie finger.
“Well . . .”
Margot had widened her eyes at Beverley. “What do you mean, well . . . ?”
“Henry was a good father,” Beverley countered, hesitantly. “He doted on Benjamin. He bought him Christmas toys, made him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Hawaiian punch.”
“Hold on.” Margot held up a palm, and Elsie marveled at the familiarity between the women, their ease, their comfort in challenging each other.
“Does tossing a ball in the yard with your son excuse you from slitting girls’ throats?”
Elsie had bristled, expecting Beverley to react in horror. Instead, Beverley had continued calmly.
“What I’m saying is that I believe he could have been both things at the same time: a dangerous man” -- she opened a hand -- “and a good father.” She opened the other next to it, like they were balancing scales.
Margot had blown a raspberry. “That’s stupid.”
Elsie had watched, entranced by the interaction, as Beverley had tilted her head patiently and replied, “And what did Dr. Garvey say, Margot?”
Elsie would later discover that the women had been seen by the same psychologist after their husbands were arrested.
Margot had rolled her eyes and parroted, in a crisp British accent, “You are to ban the word stupid from your vocabulary.”
She took a drag on the cigarette she was holding loosely between her fingers. “But sometimes it just fits. Okay, not for you, Bev, but it does for some of the wives.”
The wives? Elsie was intrigued to hear women, presumably women who’d been through what they’d been through, discussed like this.
“Like that Harbinger woman. She genuinely is an idiot.”
“Who’s that?” Elsie had braved.
“Do you not remember?” Margot blew out smoke. “She flat out refused to believe her husband was a killer.
She launched an actual campaign to protest his innocence, told the press the cops had got the wrong guy.”
“Well, what’s so wrong with that?” Elsie had glanced between them, unsure of what she’d missed. “She was being supportive.”
“He ended up taking a plea deal,” Margot said bluntly, “to avoid the chair. He admitted to twenty-five murders. Twenty- five! He used to make her call him on an intercom if she wanted to enter the garage.”
“But if she didn’t know—”
“She found a bloodstained mattress at their house!” Margot screeched.
“No, it wasn’t a bloodstained mattress,” Beverley countered. “It was no carpets. He’d had the carpets taken up.”
“That’s right” -- Margot pointed at Beverley enthusiastically -- “because he’d killed a load of women on their best carpet.”
“Oh.” Elsie felt foolish.
“That’s not even a smoking gun, is it? That’s a gun held to your head while someone says, Just in case you hadn’t noticed, honey, I get a kick outta killing people on your shag pile.”
“I heard she got a letter from one of the victims’ mothers, empathizing with her.” Beverley seemed to know what to say to calm Margot, Elsie noticed, to distract, to steer the conversation in a different way when things got heated.
“She was deceived,” Bev continued. “She genuinely thought he was a good man, not a monster.”
Monster. It was an interesting term.
Elsie was never sure that it fit for Albert, either, although she supposed there were plenty of people who would level the term at him, and not just because he killed those girls.
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Excerpted from The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives by Elizabeth Arnott Copyright © 2026 by Elizabeth Arnott. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Audio excerpted with permission of Penguin Random House Audio from THE SECRET LIVES OF MURDERERS' WIVES by Elizabeth Arnott, read by the Saskia Maarleveld and Karissa Vacker. Elizabeth Arnott ℗ 2026 Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved.
