The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford

<p><b>Four wives. Five murders. One very bad, very dead husband.</b></p><p><b>'Sharp, expansive, and polyphonic, a propulsive novel' RAVEN LEILANI</b><Br><b>'Positively blooms with violence and mercy alike' KILEY REID</b><Br><b>'Mesmerizing, tautly written, and wickedly funny' JAMI ATTENBERG</b></p><p>Rich Milford is dead. At last.</p><p>In the Black town of Newville, Oklahoma, Rich Milford has spent his life doing exactly as he pleases. A moonshiner, womaniser and self-styled prophet, he runs his eccentric household with rigid rules, strange beliefs and casual cruelty.</p><p>Now he’s been found dead.</p><p>At his funeral, the town gathers to speculate. The obvious suspects are the women closest to Rich: his four wives – Lally, Sophronia, Georgette and Vivianne – along with Alberta, the cook who has held the Milford household together for decades. Each of these women has a story to tell. Each believes, with absolute certainty, that she is the one who killed him.</p><p>As their accounts unfold, they reveal a household thick with secrets: forbidden love, suppressed rage, poisoned pies, stolen money, superstition, desire and grief. With each woman’s story, the truth splinters further, and the idea of a single version of events begins to collapse. Threaded through all of this is the voice of Newville itself – a sharp, gossipy, communal chorus that watches, judges and ultimately decides what justice will look like.</p>