A Sociopath's Guide to a Successful Marriage A Novel

A good mother will kill for her family. And, sometimes, for fun in this “wickedly dark and hilarious debut” (Alice Feeney, New York Times bestselling author of My Husband’s Wife).

Meet Lalla Rook. Lalla has a lot on her to-do list: help her husband make partner by flattering his masculinity, secure her dream home in Hampstead, get her daughter into private school, host her four-year-old’s birthday party, and remove the dead body from her living room.

Lalla can’t pretend she hasn’t missed the adrenaline rush that comes with transgressing. And, as a wife and mother, she’s already an expert multitasker. So disposing of a body, framing a friend, and being the world’s best homemaker should be easy to achieve.

It’s just that her husband seems distracted, her daughter faces an uncertain academic future, and then there is the unexpected intruder in her living room, a stranger she has stabbed seven times. Avoiding the law is the least of her worries—not when she has a past to keep hidden.

Brimming with brio, humor, and just a dash of murder, A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage introduces a brilliant new anti-heroine in “the most wildly entertaining novel you'll read this year” (A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window).

M.K. Oliver is a former English teacher and headteacher originally from Liverpool. He long dreamed of becoming a writer and after many years of working in schools, he took the risky decision to put down the whiteboard marker, take up the keyboard and give it a go. He enjoyed writing courses at Curtis Brown, Faber & Faber, and the Royal Court Theatre and now lives with his family and cat in North London. Inspired by the lengths to which parents would go to ensure their child’s happiness, M.K. Oliver created his protagonist, the uncompromising Lalla Rook.