It’s 1974 and Ellison Russell’s life revolves around her daughter and her art. She’s long since stopped caring about her cheating husband, Henry, and the women with whom he entertains himself. That is, until she becomes a suspect in Madeline Harper’s death.

The murder forces Ellison to confront her husband’s proclivities and his crimes – kinky sex, petty cruelties, and blackmail. As the body count approaches par on the seventh hole, Ellison knows she has to catch a killer.

But with an interfering mother, an adoring father, a teenage daughter, and a cadre of well-meaning friends demanding her attention, can Ellison find the killer before he finds her?

IN A NUTSHELL
This was much more than a cozy mystery. Strong plot. A complex, believable main character. Authentic historical background. Prose that was more than functional. I’ll be back for more.

‘The Deep End‘ looks like it’s a cosy mystery, something to be read with a smile and appreciated for its snark. It did make me smile in places, but there was much more to it than that. I wouldn’t describe it as cosy. I mean, how many cosy mysteries have a dominatrix as a suspect?

‘The Deep End‘ was a well-written, perceptive, character-driven story about Ellison Russell, a middle-class white woman in her forties who has been betrayed by her husband and who finds herself a suspect in a murder.

I think it stands up as good historical fiction. It takes place in Kansas City in 1974. Ellison and her mother and all of her friends are part of the privileged Country Club set, with all the social obligations and keeping up of appearances that that implies.

Ellison is a talented, commercially successful artist whose marriage has foundered on the rocks of her husband’s indiscreet infidelity and his resentment at being married to a woman who makes more money than he does. She wants partnership. He needs submission.

Then she finds the body of his mistress, murdered and dumped in the pool where Ellison swims every day, and her world is blown apart.

The story is told from Ellison’s point of view. It focuses on her experience, her emotions, and her personality as much as it does on the murder mystery.

The murder mystery was a good one. It kept me engaged, and I didn’t guess the murderer’s identity before it was revealed, but what made the book stand out was the quality of the writing and the depth of Ellison’s character.

Ellison doesn’t paint ot make money. She paints to get her emotions out of her head and onto the canvas. She’s a very visual person, with a rich inner life that she mostly hides from anybody except people able to read her mood from the pigments in her paintings. She’s a woman who has spent a great deal of time and energy living up to the expectations of her social circle and especially the standards of behaviour demanded by her formidable mother.

I liked that the plot used the murder to trigger Ellison’s re-examination of her life. I was engaged as much by her struggle to decide who she was going to be as I was by the mystery of who committed the murder.

‘The Deep End’ is the first book in what is currently a twenty-two-book series. I’m looking forward to listening to more of them. I’ve already added ‘Guaranteed to Bleed’, the second book in the series, to my shelves. I recommend the audiobook. Callie Beaulieu is easy to listen to and is skilled at differentiating characters’ voices. Click on the YouTube link below to hear a sample.