Stella Crater, the judge's wife, is the picture of propriety draped in long pearls and the latest Chanel. Ritzi, a leggy showgirl with Broadway aspirations, thinks moonlighting in the judge's bed is the quickest way off the chorus line. Maria Simon, the dutiful maid, has Judge Crater to thank for her husband's recent promotion to detective for the NYPD. Meanwhile, Judge Crater is equally indebted to Tammany Hall leaders and the city's most notorious gangster, Owney "The Killer" Madden. Then, on a sultry summer night, as rumors circulated about the judge's involvement in wide-scale political corruption, Judge Crater stepped into a cab and disappeared without a trace. Or did he? After thirty-years of necessary duplicity, Stella Crater is finally ready to reveal what she knows. Sliding into a corner booth at Club Abbey, the stie of many absinthe-soaked affairs and the judge's favorite watering hole back in the day, Stella begins to tell a tale - of greed, lust, and deceit. As the story unfolds, Stella, Ritzi, and Maria slyly break out of their prescribed roles, and it becomes clear that these three women know a lot more than they'd initially let on. With a layered intensity and tipsy spins through subterranean jazz clubs, the Wife, the Maid, adn the Mistress is a gripping tale that will transport readers to a bygone era. But beneath the Art Deco skyline and the intoxicating smell of smoke and whiskey, the question of why Judge Crater disappeared lingers seductively until a twist in the very last pages. -- Jacket flap.