A Serial Killer’s Guide to Marriage

A lean, wonderfully written story of a husband and wife, serial killers who target only bad men who deserve it: primarily rapists and sexual abusers. While the two couldn’t come from more dissimilar backgrounds—British Hazel has dragged herself out of a childhood of poverty and neglect and is now a successful painter, while American Fox, a finance guy, descends from one of the USA’s wealthiest, most prominent families. But it was their joint passion for murder that brought them—and keeps them—together. Until, that is, in this version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Hazel discovers she is pregnant, and off to the London suburbs they go. At Fox’s insistence, they agree to no more murders until baby Bibi is 21—how can they risk incarceration, which would leave Bibi an orphan? But Hazel can barely tolerate motherhood, never mind forgoing murders, and it’s thanks to her one “mom friend,” Jenny, that she is able to keep it together. Until she suspects Fox of harboring secrets, she develops a few herself, and Jenny turns out to be, of all things, a cop. The pace is just perfect, the characters alternately funny and dark, and the head-spins relentless.