A Reliable Wife: Robert Goolrick

I picked up this book because I liked the cover, and then luckily really enjoyed the book. An older lonely man, Mr. Truitt, posts an ad looking for a "reliable wife" a woman, Catherine, answers it and sends another woman's picture, which he doesn't find out until he sends for her by train. The story is told by alternating voices with each chapter and as the story progresses we learn there is more to each character's motive than they tell us. Towards the end of the book, after the two get married and Truitt sends Catherine to find his long lost son. We find out Catherine and the son is actually lovers who had answered the ad to murder Truitt and take his fortune. However after Catherine finds her sister, who is near death, she realizes she doesn't have to care for everyone else anymore and she can allow herself some happiness. She falls in love with Truitt and stops poisoning him. The lover/son comes back home and dies after Catherine nurses Truitt back to health and there is finally a glimmer of a happy ending.