Undetected

Suzy Perry, a lovely, accomplished older woman, has married into a new family in Westchester County, NY, after being widowed not long before in Atlanta. Her new husband, Dean Perry, is besotted with her, but his son, Alex, and daughter-in-law Lisa are troubled by how little they know about her. Who is she?
Little by little, clues and tidbits of information persuade Alex that he needs to know more. As the questions pile up, Alex, a journalist, elects to hire a private detective to probe Suzy’s past, without informing his father. Over time, it becomes clear that Suzy changed her name when she moved to Atlanta – and that she had been married for many years to a car dealer in Missouri who died suddenly shortly before she left.
Is all this innocent, or something more sinister? Once circumstantial, the evidence becomes more concrete – and then Suzy is on the run.

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The notion that Suzy might be a black widow is startling to the Perrys, but there are more surprises: Suzy has apparently abandoned her only daughter, who is now a middle-aged professor in Los Angeles who has heard nothing from Suzy in more than 20 years. And, while Alex and his father don’t know it, Suzy is being blackmailed by her financial advisor, who suspects her role in her second husband’s death. A shocking twist: he’s someone from her past.
Hints are dropped at various points about Suzy’s history and her psychological makeup, much of which might be attributable to terrible things that happened to her as a teenager. But she’s clearly not normal, quite possibly a sociopath, though she’s adept at hiding her character from those close to her. She has only a cool, formal relationship with her step-children in Atlanta and their young children, and the step-children gradually begin to wonder if she had a hand in their father’s death.
While she grew up lower middle-class in Arkansas, Suzy has become a sophisticate who enjoys Prada and Dolce & Gabbana and the other trappings that come from being married to wealthy men. She’s a narcissist who takes great pride in her skill at bridge – but is consumed with thoughts of revenge when she suspects men of cheating on her.
There is extensive dialogue throughout and a ramping up of the narrative pace as Suzy takes flight, landing first with her childhood friend in Little Rock, who is devastated when Suzy confesses the truth about her husbands’ deaths. The story ends with Suzy ostensibly safe in a new place and potentially taking up with another man. Is she really going to get away with everything?