Columbia has acquired rights to Robert Goolrick’s creepy novel A Reliable Wife, which hits shelves March 31. Sony-based Michael De Luca is attached to produce. De Luca Prods. exec Josh Bratman brought in the book. Set in rural Wisconsin in 1908, the book centers on a middle-aged widower who places a newspaper ad seeking “a reliable wife.” Instead of fielding a homely applicant, the man finds himself welcoming a gorgeous former courtesan with an agenda of her own. “Wife” was named as the top pick for the ALA’s April Indie List. Inside you’ll find a more detailed synopsis, which reveals plans for murder.
Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for “a reliable wife.” But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she’s not the “simple, honest woman” that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man’s devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt — a passionate man with his own dark secrets –has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways.