My Lovely Wife

My Lovely Wife (2019) is a thriller novel by Samantha Downing. The novel is narrated by an unnamed father of two teenagers who, along with his wife Millicent, plans a series of murders and pins them on Owen, a local serial killer from decades past. Although the couple begins their criminal activities together, over time, the secrets they have kept from each other begin to surface, threatening their own safety as well as their children’s. My Lovely Wife was Downing’s debut novel, and it won the Edgar, ITW, and Macavity awards in the US, the CWA award in the UK, and the Prix des Lectrices award in France. Downing has published three more best-selling novels and a novella.

This guide refers to the paperback edition published by Penguin Books in 2019.

Content Warning: My Lovely Wife and this guide mention violence, murder, death by suicide, and infidelity.

Plot Summary

An unnamed father narrates the novel. He gives private tennis lessons and his wife, Millicent, is a real estate agent. Their children are Rory, 14, and Jenna, 13.

In a bar, he meets a woman named Petra and pretends to be a deaf accountant named Tobias. He is scoping out whether or not she would be a good person for him and his wife, Millicent, to murder.