After 13 years of marriage, David Pepin, a videogame entrepreneur, finds that a perverse daydream has come true: His wife, Alice, is dead—not from any of the violent ends he imagined for her but from anaphylactic shock after eating peanuts. And he is the prime suspect. Two detectives assigned to the case, Ward Hasteroll (who thinks that Pepin is guilty) and Sam Sheppard (who thinks that he is innocent), have their own marital miseries. Hasteroll's wife is depressed and in bed; Sheppard's wife winds up dead, in bed.
