This classic has good suspense and, as always from Levin, is well plotted. I won’t bother to summarize, since so many others already have, but it’s interesting to see a writer bring out the spooky side of sunshine and clean floors and fresh-smelling laundry. If you took the TV commercials of the 1970’s at face value, with their cheerful housewives happily cleaning perfect homes, and built a world that embodied what those commercials portrayed, you’d come up with Stepford.

This is an excellent mystery/suspense novel, with plenty of twists. It’s exceptionally well plotted, and I enjoyed Levin’s clear, straightforward writing. I read Dorothy Hughes' “In a Lonely Place” just before reading this one. The books have some things in common. Both follow a disturbed young man, both men are about the same age, both are World War II veterans, both yearn for a life beyond their reach, both are murderers, and both target women.