Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, editor Sarah Weinman’s collection of “stories from the trailblazers of domestic suspense,” is not only one of the year’s must-have collections of forgotten writings; it also continues the excellent trend of under-appreciated fiction subgenres getting the respect they rightfully deserve. And even though we know you should never judge a book by one, the cover of Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives is as irresistible as the stories by Patricia Highsmith, Vera Caspary, and the other writers included in this marvelous collection of crime fiction. It’s a design that pulls you in with its homage to old-school pulp paperback covers of the kind of novels authors in Weinman’s anthology published.
Using Weinman’s Domestic Suspense website as a jumping off point, we collected a handful of real vintage covers for the works of the writers featured in Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives.
Reformatory Girls, Nedra Tyre
Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith
The Judas Cat, Dorothy Salisbury Davis
The Trouble Makers, Celia Fremlin
Laura, Vera Caspary
The Death Wish, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Detour to Death, Helen Nielsen
Then Came Two Women, Charlotte Armstrong
The Girl Who had to Die, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Ride the Pink Horse, Dorothy B. Hughes
Belinda, Vera Caspary
Road Through the Wall, Shirley Jackson
The Blank Wall, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
A Stranger in My Grave, Margaret Millar
A Game for the Living, Dorothy B. Hughes
The Candy Kid, Dorothy B. Hughes
The Price of Salt, Claire Morgan (Patricia Highsmith)
The Virgin Huntress, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Dead on the Level, Helen Nielsen