Location, location, location

A Reliable Wife
Robert Goolrick
Algonquin

When I travel, one of the things that I inevitably find the time to do is ... drum roll please  ... go to a bookstore.   Hah!  I can tell I surprised no one with that comment.  Would you find it more interesting if I told you that I always visit three "sections" on these jaunts?  Yep -- I check out the bestseller wall and/or table, the "staff picks" section, and the "local reads" area.  Of the three, my favourite is usually the staff picks.  I especially like those stores where mini-reviews are hand-written on recipe cards and thumb-tacked to the shelves.

Every once in a while, however, I manage to find a gem in the local reads section of the store.  That is exactly what happened on my last trip to Chicago.  It was the title that caught my eye, but it was the fact that the story was set in early 1900s Wisconsin that grabbed my imagination.

Goolrick's The Reliable Wife is a beautiful story about love, hope, passion, and despair.  Catherine Land, the novel's inscrutable heroine, answers an advertisement in the newspaper.  A prosperous gentleman, Ralph Truitt, is looking for a reliable wife.  Catherine responds by saying she is honest, simple, and the daughter of a missionary.  In reality, she is scheming and complex and a high-priced whore.  In fact, she is looking to marry Truitt and to leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow.  Arsenic is her weapon of choice.

The story unfolds in a most unexpected way and Catherine ends up experiencing passion with a complex man who has secrets of his own.  I really enjoyed this novel and would recommend it for a rainy weekend when you need to get lost in a book.  Three private railcars out of five.