Understudy For Death – Charles Willeford

When a seemingly happy housewife kills herself and her two children, a reporter for the local paper is assigned to find out why. Along the way, he finds dissatisfaction with his own life, finally deciding that devotion to his wife and son are enough for him.

Originally titled Understudy For Love when it was first published in 1961, the work by Charles Willeford was not quite what I was expecting.  This wasn’t a crime novel, per se, but rather a character study of an unsure man trying to find his way while investigating a crime.  I’ve had good experiences with the output from Hard Case Crime in the past, but this was, at least for me, the first clunker.