Enhancement of the temporal growth rate of inviscid three-dimensional instability waves in free shear layers by deformation of the basic flow is studied. The deformation of a two-dimensional mixing layer is assumed to yield a base flow that remains unidirectional, but has a steady spanwise speed variation in addition to the two- dimensional shear. The computed growth rates for hyperbolic tangent base flow, perturbed this way, show enhanced instability in the sense that the neutral waves of the unperturbed flow exhibit positive growth rates. For each imposed spanwise periodicity, an oblique mode is selected that shows maximum growth rate. The results are consistent with related theoretical studies and with qualitative observations in experiments.