From the author of Julie Tudor is Not a Psychopath (“wickedly funny and darkly compelling”) comes a twisted new thriller about a marriage built on lies—and a body that won’t stay buried.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Mr and Mrs Dixon Hide a Body by Jennifer Holdich, which releases on July 21st 2026.
Daisy Dixon is desperate to escape her controlling husband and crumbling estate. But the night before she leaves, a terrible accident changes everything.
Instead of calling for help, Daisy and her husband make a choice that binds them together in the worst possible way.
When blame starts shifting and loyalties shatter, Daisy realizes her husband isn’t just her partner in crime—he’s her competition. But if someone is going to prison, it won’t be her.
Twisted, darkly funny, and deliciously vicious, this is a high-stakes game of love, betrayal, and revenge—where the most dangerous thing in the house isn’t the body.
It’s the marriage.
CHAPTER ONE
“Doesn’t it go any faster than that?” I asked, as the chandelier descended from the ceiling at glacial speed.
The contractor rubbed his chin. “Aye.” He pressed the switch on the wall and the speed increased to iceberg.
“Any more?”
He nodded and pressed the switch again and I could actually see it moving, but anyone standing under it would have plenty of time to get away if they needed to.
“Have you ever seen one just drop from the ceiling and fall to the ground?” I asked.
“Nah, it’s got a safety cord, would stop it if the chain broke. Safe as houses. Anyway, better slow it down, don’t want to burn the motor out and leave it hanging halfway.” And that we could agree on. “The top speed’s for emergencies only,” he remarked as the chandelier returned to its glacial dignity, but he didn’t elaborate on the kind of emergency you might encounter.
“So, has nobody ever had a chandelier drop on them?” I wanted to make absolutely sure before I abandoned the idea.
“You’ve been watching too many Midsomer Murders.” He chuckled, and I nodded. I had. I was going to have to find another way to kill my husband.
On the days when I felt it was worth making an effort, I would haul laundry up and down the stairs, beneath the portraits of the ancestors, under the gaze of their ghosts, past the priceless antiques, around the chairs so valuable no one dared to sit on them, and into the washing machine that had a room all to itself. I’d dust the spots Mrs. Billings had missed and tidy until I didn’t know where anything was. Then I’d vacuum until I bashed my knee or tripped over the hose. After that, I would return to the laundry and iron until I damaged one of James’s Egyptian cotton shirts, which wasn’t usually more than two or three shirts in.
Then, I’d flop onto the sofa, craving a whodunit, or three, and as I watched them, my mind would wander to the parts of the house I hadn’t touched: the grime in the ancient carpets in the unused bedrooms, the dust in their heavy velvet curtains, mothballs in the wardrobes harboring the old, old clothes from long-dead former residents. I’d reflect, in dismay, on the herculean task I would never complete and the knowledge that I would never truly be mistress of this house. My enthusiasm would evaporate.
But that was just on the days when I felt it was worth making an effort. Most days, I would leave the cleaning to Mrs. Billings; unconcerned about the quality of her work, I would merely shift from my bed to the sofa and watch TV for much of the time, the long stretch of hours broken into manageable segments by morning chat shows and afternoon thrillers.
My only break from the TV would be time spent at my sewing machine, if I had a particularly good idea for a new dress or skirt or top. As I stitched, my mind would wander, not to the state of the house but to the parting of ways of James and me and how much longer it would be until I could put into play the perfect murder and inherit his wealth.
When James and I first got engaged and I moved into Langley Hall, I sold the house I had inherited from my mum, an old thatched cottage in the middle of our village, and invested all the money in his cryptocurrency business. All of it.
Years later, I decided enough of this marriage was enough and I asked him for my money back, along with the gains I had made, only to be told that of the £350,000 I had invested, I would only get around £20,000 if I cashed it in now.
Apparently, you had to leave it for many years to get the fortune promised at the end. I asked a few more times over the years, but I was always told, just a little bit longer.
“Think of it more like a pension plan than short-term savings,” James said to me.
Apparently, we had discussed all that before I invested and, apparently, I said I understood. James had money because he was paid for managing the currency, but we investors had to bide our time.
I couldn’t leave with only £20,000 of the inheritance my mum had left for me, and I had no realistic means of supporting myself—after years of not working, my job prospects were limited. So I had no choice but to wait until either it was worth something or I could claim the equivalent under the terms of our prenup.
“Hasn’t anyone ever taken their money out sooner?” I asked.
“Not without making a huge loss,” James said. Then he looked thoughtful. “Maybe I should make it clearer in the contract, then people wouldn’t be so confused. I’m having to explain it all the time.”
So I continued as I was.
Most days, around half past five, whether I was making an effort or not, I’d rise from the sofa and shimmy over to the kitchen, where I’d concoct nothing more technical than a Meal to Share from Marks and Spencer. For health and safety reasons, I am forbidden from making anything from scratch.
An M&S ready meal was the peak of fine dining for us. On a more average night, I’d slide fish fingers under the grill, and into the oven would go a trayful of oven chips. I’d microwave some frozen veg and serve it all out. Sometimes James would come home and eat it; sometimes he wouldn’t, and I’d either put his in the oven to keep it warm or throw it straight in the bin, depending on my mood.
When he was here to eat, it would be like attending a work meeting. He’d ask me about tasks he had set while I fussed about nervously, wondering if he was going to catch me in a lie:
“Did you get Mrs. Billings to iron the curtains?”
“Yes,” I said. No, that was a ridiculous task, I wouldn’t demean myself, or her. He couldn’t tell if they’d been ironed or not.
“Did you count up how many new roof tiles we need?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve made a note of it somewhere.” No, that was like trying to count the stars, but that was often the point of these tasks. We needed a professional to come and look at it properly.
“Has the surveyor’s report arrived yet?” he asked me one evening through mouthfuls of chicken nuggets, potato waffles, and peas, clearing his giant plate in minutes.
“Not yet,” I said, taking my time over my stingy portion. Ever since James decided I was putting on weight, he insisted I eat from a child’s plate with plenty of space visible around the edges. He says portion control is the name of the game.
“Chase them up, will you?” he said of the surveyors. “What’s taking them so long?”
What was taking them so long was the fact that there was no surveyor’s report.
On our estate is a small, private graveyard with a mausoleum. It was once attached to a chapel which belonged to the house. The chapel no longer stands, but the graveyard is still consecrated ground, and the mausoleum houses the remains of the aristocrats who once inhabited this stately home.
When James bought the house, tumbledown and unlived-in for years, he was advised to keep an eye on the mausoleum. In days gone by, the river had been rerouted and it now ran within damaging distance. More recently, a sizable part of the nearby woods was chopped down, causing drainage issues in that corner of our land and threatening the mausoleum further. The time had come for a survey, and the task of arranging it had fallen to me.
But there was a problem: James insisted we use a company run by a couple from the village, Euan and Samantha Saunders. I had gone to school with them, and they had bullied me mercilessly through every year.
I was an outcast at school: firstly, because of being poor, and secondly, because, while I was not alone in living in a single-parent household, I was unique in not knowing who my dad was. It was a goldmine for Euan and Samantha.
My mum always said I must’ve inherited my mad, blond hair from him because no one else in the family had locks like mine. I spent my childhood staring whenever I saw a bushy-haired man, looking for other similarities between us and trying to work up the courage to ask him if he was my father, but I never did.
To this day, the sight of Samantha and Euan turned me back into that same girl they tortured mercilessly, and they hadn’t evolved much further themselves. The last time they had been to Langley Hall, they had made unnecessary trips to the house together, asking to use the toilet, asking for glasses of water, insisting on coming in to pour it themselves. Turning up as and when they felt like it because I had to make allowances for their medical condition—they both had the same one. Talking about how “it’s alright for some” and “there’s no justice.” We all knew they meant more by that than the fact that I lived in Langley Hall.
There were smirks and looks exchanged, loud laughter whenever I walked away. I tried to tell myself they were just jealous. True, I had my health, while they had their medication, but there is only so far that sentiment can take you.
“I thought we might try a different company this time,” I had said to James when he first raised the issue of the survey.
But he said, “Shop local,” and that was the end of the discussion.
I shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable in my own home—aside from when James was there—so I put the matter on hold until I devised a strategy to make myself comfortable when they were around. To date, no such strategy had presented itself.
As a stopgap, I went down to the mausoleum and I gave the walls a good shove myself. I leaned on them with my full weight and I kicked the corners. I wandered among the trees along the riverbank until I found a good, sturdy branch. I took it back to the mausoleum and whacked the walls with it. I ran at the door with it, like a battering ram. Nothing moved, not so much as a pebble fell, not even a little bit of crumbling.
So it seemed rock solid to me, and I told James the surveyors had been and they had said it was fine and they would send their report in due course. That, I felt, deferred the problem for another five years, by which point, hopefully, James would be in there himself. For now, I just had to wait for him to forget about the report.
I put it to the back of my mind as I returned to Project Kill Your Husband, looking through cupboards and drawers for innocuous household items that would suddenly present themselves as the perfect murder weapon, knowing that out in the countryside beyond there was a plethora of toxic plants. If only he would let me cook for him properly.
