Deathday

To all appearances Adam Crosse is a normal, well-integrated member of society; respected provincial journalist, nice new-town home, attractive wife, jovial disposition. But in fact, behind his front of self-assurance, Crosse is sensitive, frustrated, introspective - a mass of neuroses and self-protective fantasies. Never a Romeo, is sex-life is now a failure; he is a hypochondriac and tranquilizer addict; it needs just the one final nudge to push him over the edge. That nudge comes with his chance discovery that his wife, Lydia, has a lover - and worse, that she evinces no trace of remorse over his finding out. Crushing his self-esteem, she shrugs off the affair as a necessity to be blamed on his sexual inadequacy. Casually she tells him to adjust the best way he can and now please to get out of her kitchen as she has the Saturday morning cake to bake.... The next thing Adam Crosse really knows is that he has smashed in her skull with a monkey-wrench from the garage.