Just Jennifer

A Circle of Wives by Alice LaPlante (Atlantic Monthly, March 2014)

Plastic surgeon Dr. John Taylor has built a practice, and his reputation, on helping disfigured children, eschewing traditional plastic surgery which would be more lucrative to his practice.  When he is found dead in his hotel room, Palo Alto detective Samantha Adams is assigned to the case, surprised as homicide is not her usual beat.  As she begins to investigate Dr. Taylor, she learns he was a bigamist, married to three separate women; she is shocked to learn that his status conscious first wife Deborah not only knew about the other two women, but orchestrated and scheduled Dr. Taylor’s life to accommodate his choices.  Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the four women, Deborah, Samantha, MJ, his mother-earth wife, and Helen, his pediatric oncologist wife, and together they not only form a picture of his life, but slowly reveal who might have wanted him dead.  With different voices, and different images of what their life was like, each woman tells her story, deals with the death of her husband and the betrayal she feels.  Samantha, in her own way, lets Taylor’s legacy seep into her helping her make some choices, and face some truths, in her own life that she may have been trying to avoid.