All is not well in the Ravener household. Arthur shows little interest in his pretty new bride. He disappears after dinner. Elsie waits up for him into the wee hours of the morning. His bedroom door is locked. Arthur prefers the company of Jack, his “bosom friend” from his college days. A Marriage Below Zero (1889) is a tragicomic account of a desperate woman’s attempts to uncover the secret at the center of her husband’s life. Her quest for the truth will take her to London, New York, and Paris, where she finally discovers what everyone else has suspected all along.

“ALAN DALE” was the pen name of Alfred J. Cohen, novelist, playwright, and the controversial drama critic for Hearst newspapers. Born in Birmingham, England in 1861, Dale immigrated to the U.S. to pursue a career in journalism. In the 1890s, he pioneered the “flippant school” of theatrical journalism, becoming the most feared and famous critic in America. His numerous novels include Jonathan’s Home (1885), An Eerie He and She (1890), A Moral Busybody (1894), and A Girl Who Wrote (1902). He died in 1928.