The Third Wife employs the conventions of domestic noir, a subgenre of the psychological thriller that exposes the darkness lurking beneath seemingly perfect domestic surfaces. Domestic noir as a concept was first used to describe film noir that centered on the domestic space, such as George Cukor’s Gaslight or Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, both released in 1944. In 2013, author Julia Crouch used the term to define her work within the broader genre of crime fiction. She writes: “In a nutshell, Domestic Noir takes place primarily in homes and workplaces, concerns itself largely (but not exclusively) with the female experience, is based around relationships and takes as its base a broadly feminist view that the domestic sphere is a challenging and sometimes dangerous prospect for its inhabitants” (“Julia Crouch Genre Bender.” Julia Crouch, 2013). This subgenre has its roots in the gothic novel tradition anchored by authors like Charlotte Brontë and Daphne du Maurier.

Crouch’s use of the term in a literary context coincided with its surge in popularity in the early 21st century. In a 2015 column for The Guardian, Irish author Marian Keyes wrote, “I’ve been reading an awful lot of what I call “grip-lit” […] These books offer real escapism, because if it’s done well, I completely lose track of time. They do all the work for me, and don’t put up a fight to be read” (“On My Radar: Marian Keyes’s Cultural Highlights.” The Guardian, 2015). Keyes’s play term came to refer to propulsive domestic noir thrillers with suspenseful plots designed to immerse readers. The commercial success of bestsellers like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012) and Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train (2015), as well as their subsequent film adaptations, propelled the trend, captivating readers with stories of marital secrets, betrayal, and hidden psychological distress.

The front matter of The Third Wife explicitly aligns Jewell with authors like Liane Moriarty and Tana French, whose work also falls under the domestic noir and grip-lit monikers, noting Jewell’s “perfect blend of women’s fiction and nail-biting suspense” (v). By placing suspense within the familiar confines of a family home, the novel uses the domestic noir framework to explore how easily the ideal of domestic bliss can unravel into a site of profound danger and deception.