Normally I like to read a Donald Westlake book, but let me warn you about "the Axe" which he must have written in a funk.
A very smart engineer is desperate to find work , and finds he is pretty good at getting away with murder, so he reduces his competition.
This is enough spoiler, the book was well written and plotted , but the subject and the conclusion I found depressing.
But it would work! If you got away with it.
So women being scarce is good for their status?
And all they had to have was the decimation of their daughters.