More from MHC
(1994) Clark's books are always megahits, and her fans love the nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat suspense that is her trademark. So it's a little surprising that this collection of six interrelated stories featuring Willy and Alvirah Meehan lacks Clark's usual energy and pizzazz. The Meehans, who first appeared in Clark's Weep No More, My Lady, have struck it rich in the lottery. No longer do they slave away at housecleaning (Alvirah) and plumbing (Willy). Their days are spent pursuing the hedonistic pleasures of the idle rich, although, to their credit, Alvirah and Willy haven't lost touch with their roots. Alvirah seems to have a "talent" for murder, both for being in the general vicinity when one occurs and for uncloaking the villain before anyone else. For readers who enjoy the nouveau riche approach to crime solving (a la Jonathan and Jennifer Hart or Nick and Nora Charles), these stories may prove mildly entertaining, but because they're so short, there's little opportunity for any real development of motive, plot, or character. And while the Meehans are basically nice, easy-to-like folks, the stories about their escapades are flat, facile, and distinctly lacking in suspense.
(2001) Emily Graham knows what it's like to have enemies. The pretty New York attorney--a millionaire due to a lucky stock market break--has been sued by her greedy ex-husband and stalked by a man who thinks she helped his mother's murderer escape punishment. But when she buys her great-great-grandmother's childhood home in the sleepy resort town of Spring Lake, Emily thinks her new life will be saner, even though five other young women, including Emily's ancestor Madeline Shapley, have disappeared from Spring Lake under creepy circumstances over the past century.
No sooner has Emily moved in than she starts receiving frightening, anonymous messages. Worse, when she breaks ground for a backyard pool, the backhoe brings up the body of Martha Lawrence, who vanished four years ago, and whose dead hand clutches the finger bone of Madeline Shapley, identified by her sapphire ring. Both women disappeared on September 7, 105 years apart. When the cops and Emily realize that a similar parallel exists between two other missing women and that the anniversary of yet another girl's disappearance is fast approaching, they quickly surmise that a sixth murder will be attempted in just a week. But by whom? Is today's serial killer a copycat of the Spring Lake murderer of the 1890s--or a reincarnation? Fueled by fear, anger, and scary little notes from the killer, Emily's actively researching the murders, but even she doesn't realize how many suspects there are: the retired college president, who's being blackmailed, and his perpetually angry wife; the town's bankrupt restaurateur with a weakness for pretty blondes; the middle-aged detective with his finger right on the pulse of the crimes. Even Emily's friend Eric, the software CEO who made her rich, and Nick, her new coworker, seem to show up at suspiciously convenient times.
Mary Higgins Clark's cast of characters may be overly large; in going for quantity she skimps on the characterization, and all of them, including Emily, are as wooden as Al Gore. But characterization isn't what's made this 24-book author a bestseller-list regular. The cleverly complex plot gallops along at a great clip, the little background details are au courant, and the identities of both murderers come as an enjoyable surprise. On the Street Where You Live just may be Clark's best in years.
(1996) Imagine Nick and Nora Charles with a taste for politics and none for gin, and you'd be pretty close to Mary Higgins Clark's Henry Parker Britland IV and his attractive young wife, Sandra O'Brien Britland, known as Sunday. Henry, possessor of an enormous inherited fortune and known as one of America's sexiest men, has just finished his second term as president of the United States and is happily retired at 44, puttering around his New Jersey country estate. Sunday, who bootstrapped her way up from a modest working-class background, is a junior congresswoman with a reputation for smarts. The two met, romantically enough, on the eve of Henry's leaving office, fell madly in love, and were married six weeks later. In this collection of four pleasantly readable stories, the sleuthing duo catch the murderer of a statesman's flashy amour, endure Sunday's kidnapping and mastermind her rescue, solve the 34-year-old mystery of the disappearance of a foreign prime minister from the Britland family yacht, and reunite a ransomed boy with his parents at Christmas. Of the four, "They All Ran After the President's Wife" may be the best plotted, and has a particularly amusing McGuffin in the character of a caviar-loving terrorist. While the suspense is on the mild side throughout, the romance is lighthearted but sincere, and the occasional flashes of wit are dryly appealing. It's a bonbon, to be enjoyed for its brief sweetness.
(2005) Clark's clever use of a bit of New Jersey real estate code fits perfectly into her usual formula for minting bestsellers in a novel about past deadly secrets coming to haunt the present. At One Old Mill Lane, in Mendham, N.J., 10-year-old Liza Barton wakes to find her stepfather, Ted Cartwright, attacking her mother, Audrey. Liza grabs a gun in defense, but in the ensuing melee Audrey is killed and Ted is wounded. Dubbed "Little Lizzie Borden," Liza is taken away and almost convicted of murdering her mother and attempting to kill the lying, scheming Ted. Twenty-four years later, Liza, now known as Celia Foster Nolan, has just been presented with a surprise birthday present from her new husband, Alex: the house at One Old Mill Lane. Alex doesn't know Celia is really Liza, and he doesn't know the house's grim past—but thanks to a real estate code obligating agents to notify prospective buyers if a house could be considered "stigmatized property," he's about to find out about the latter at least. As Celia fights to keep her dark secret hidden, their real estate agent turns up dead. More folks are killed and Celia comes under suspicion. But in typical Clark style, most of the characters look a little guilty. Some readers will get annoyed by Celia's tendency to do things that reinforce the cops' suspicions, but Clark's steadfast fans will suspend all necessary disbelief and play along.
