Mary Higgins Clark 1929 -

The plots Clark creates are complex, providing many twists and turns, hiding the solution to the mystery from both reader and characters. Clues in the form of subtle details are placed along the way. The reader becomes involved in figuring out who the adversary is and cheering the characters on when they head for the same conclusions.

Her Life:

"In 1974, before I published Where Are the Children?" she recalls, "I went to a fortune teller. She told me, 'You're going to make a great deal of money and be famous."
Where Are the Children?, Mary Higgins Clark first suspense novel was sold for $3000 and published in 1975. It became her first bestseller and marked a turning point in her life and career. Recently released as a Simon & Schuster Classic, it is now in its 70th printing. Ms. Clark is the author of 19 novels and three short story collections.
Frank and self-deprecating, she's unimpressed with most of today's movies. "I do want to see `Saving Private Ryan' and `The Truman Show,'" she answers when pressed about current cinema. "`Titanic' is a good movie in the old style, but it doesn't seem to me that there are great stories like there used to be."
Clark was spinning horror yarns by the age of 6, but her father's death when she was 10 made it necessary for her to work as a teen rather than pursue writing. She married happily, but her husband, Warren, died in 1964 when Clark was 36 and the mother of five.
Writing became her salvation. She started making time to write at the kitchen table before heading to a day job. After being rejected by two publishers, Clark's novel about a woman accused of killing her offspring, Where Are the Children? became a bestseller. After nineteen bestsellers, she now receives $12 million per book.
She also got a chance at romance "in her declining years," as she jokes, when she was set up with retiree John Conheeney by one of her daughters. The couple wed in 1996. The newlyweds have nine children and 15 grandchildren between them.
Clark -- who not only graduated from college at age 51 but also holds 14 honorary degrees -- has inspired other wriers in her family. Daughter Carol Higgins Clark is the author of several suspense novels, former daughter-in-law Mary Jane Clark writes mysteries, and two granddaughters are budding writers.

Her Books:

Nancy Harmon had fled the heartbreak of her first marriage, the macabre deaths of her two little children, the hostile front-page newspaper stories and the shocking charges against her. She changed her name, dyed her red hair sable brown, and left California for the wind-swept peace of Cape Cod. Now she was married again, had two more beautiful children, and the terrible pain had begun to heal...until the morning when she looked in the back yard for her little boy and girl, found only one red mitten, and knew that the nightmare was beginning again...

Ronald Thompson knows he never killed Nina Peterson... yet in two days the state of Connecticut will take his life, having found him guilty via due process of law. But Thompson's death will not stop the pain and anger of Nina's husband, Steve. Thompson's death will not still the fears of Nina's six-year-old son, Neil, witness to his mother's brutal slaying. Not even the love and friendship of Sharon Martin, a journalist who is slowly becoming a part of their world, will ever erase their bitter memories. Only time, perhaps, will heal their wounds. But in the shadows a stranger waits, a cunning psychopath who has killed before, who has unfinished business at the Peterson home...

A minor road accident landed county prosecutor Katie DeMaio in Westlake Hospital. That night, from her window, she thought she saw a man load a woman's body into the trunk of a car...or was it just a sleeping pill-induced nightmare? At work the next day, Katie began investigating a suicide that looked more like murder. Initial evidence pointed elsewhere, but medical examiner Richard Carroll saw a trail leading to Dr. Edgar Highley. He suspected that the famous doctor's work "curing" infertile women was more than controversial--that it was deceitful, depraived, and often deadly. But before Richard could tell Katie his fears, she left the office for the weekend and an appointment for routine surgery...in Dr. Highley's operating room.

When lovely Jenny MacPartland met the man of her dreams while working in a New York art gallery, she could hardly believe her luck. Artist Erich Krueger was handsome, sensitive, a painter whose exquisite landscapes were making him a virtual overnight success...and a man utterly in love with her! Married within a month, suddenly wealthy, deeply adored, Jenny planned a warm, caring home on Erich's vast Minnesota farm. But the lonely days and eerie nights strained her nerves to the breaking point, making her doubt her own sanity. Caught in a whirlpool of shattering events, Jenny was about to unearth a past more terrifying than she dared imagine...tragic, terrible secrets that threatened her marriage, her children, her very life.

I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME..." Slipped under the door of her Georgetown home, the note was an ominous reminder of Pat Traymore's past. The beautiful young television journalist had come to glamorous, high-powered Washington to produce a TV series. Her subject: Senator Abigail Jennings, slated for nomination as the first woman vice president of the United States. With the help of an old flame, Congresman Sam Kingsley, Pat delves into Abigail's life, only to turn up horrifying facts that threaten to destroy senator's reputation and her career. Worse still, sinister connections to Pat's own childhood and the nightmare secrets hidden within are surfacing -- secrets waiting to destroy her.

Elizabeth Lange has arrived at Cypress Point Spa in Pebble Beach, California, weary of heart and soul. Still grieving for her beloved sister, a famous actress who plunged to her death from her Manhattan penthouse, Elizabeth is determined to unearth the truth about how Leila died. Dashing multimillionaire Ted Winters stands accused of her murder, but Elizabeth has doubts. Along the windswept cliffs of the Monterey coast, in luxurious bungalows, between gourmet meals and beachfront walks, uneasiness stalks Elizabeth while she begins opening doors to the past. As glimpses of the dark truth about Leila's life and death -- and about Elizabeth herself -- start to crash against her mind, an ominous wave from an unexpected source threatens to engulf her entirely.

THE DEAD WOMAN WORE RED... Gossip columnist Ethel Lambston knew everything about everybody who was somebody---so there were more than enough suspects in her murder. But for Neeve Kearny, owner of an expensive Madison Avenue boutique, the killing of one of her best customers had eerie echoes of another death that occurred many years earlier---the murder of her own mother. Suddenly, Neeve is plunged into the mystery of Ethel Lambston's murder, following a trail that leads from the glittering pleasure palaces of New York's rich and beautiful to the Mafia underworld. In the tradition of Mary Higgins Clark's staggering bestsellers, Neeve Kearny is a woman determined to find the truth, caught in a swirl of money and romance---and stalked by a killer who's closer than she could ever dream.

Reviewer: Marys Fan from Seattle, WA USA Out of all of Clarks books, this was the first and best I have yet to read. When Erin and Darcy start to answer personal columns in the newspaper, they dont know that it will turn deadly. Erins body is found with one sneaker on her foot, on the other a beautiful dancing slipper. Darcy is determined to find Erins killler, even if she has to put her life in danger. What Darcy doesn't know is that Erin wasn't the first victim to answer to "Loves Music, Loves to Dance". Darcy finds herself getting closer and closer to the killer,and the story unfolds as a true Mystery, with lots of twist and turns in the plot to keep you guesing who dun it?

"A Deadly Promise..." Professor Alan Grant is found stabbed to death in his New Jersey home. All the evidence points to an obsessed student, 21 year-old Laurie Kenyon, who sent him passionate letters, followed him, even watched him through his study window---and awakens in her door room, covered with Grant's blood and clutching the knife that killed him. Attorney Sarah Kenyon, Laurie's sister, alone understands Laurie's daily nightmare and the trauma left by a childhood kidnapping too hideous too be recalled. Laurie's abductors, now a prominent televangelist and his wife, fear she will start to remember her life with them. And her past must be kept buried at all costs---even if it means carrying out the murderous threat made to a terrified girl years ago.

Covering the story of a stabbing victim, television news reporter Meghan Collins stares down at the sheet-wrapped body of a beautiful young woman in a New York City hospital. What she sees in the dead girl's face draws her into a terrifying web of treachery, where nothing is as it seems and the truth may be too devastating to pursue.... In a tragic bridge accident, Meghan's father has disappeared -- but no trace has been found of his body or his car. Meghan's mother, neither widow nor wife, is unable to convert joint assets she needs to retain ownership of the family's Connecticut inn. Before his disappearance, Edwin Collins had taken all the cash out of his substantial insurance policies. Now, in absentia, he has become the suspect in a brutal murder. Trying to identify the dead girl, find her murderer, and clear her own father's name, Meghan finds that her search is entwined with a story she is doing on the Manning Clinic, an in-vitro fertilization center where women seek the children nature has denied them. On a twisting trail of deadly passions and deceit, Meghan is venturing ever closer to the truth...a nightmare journey that may cost her her very life.

From Booklist Addicts of the queen of suspense won't be able to resist her latest novel, in which Kerry McGrath's chance encounter with a creepy plastic surgeon sends her on a mission to right a past injustice. As an attorney with a judgeship in her future, Kerry's energies suddenly turn to protecting her young daughter and to finding out who really killed Suzanne Reardon 10 years earlier. Could it be Dr. Smith, the surgeon who keeps creating Suzanne's beautiful face for his female clients? Or Kerry's boss, who convicted Suzanne's husband of the murder? Or Jimmy Weeks, a rich thug? (Or any of Clark's other suspicious characters?) With an assorted cast of manipulators and truth seekers, Mary Higgins Clark reveals the real crime--in her own inimitable style. Rebecca Mandalay.

In New York with his family, so his father can get treatment for leukemia, seven-year-old Brian Dornan sees his mother's wallet being lifted. Desperate to retrieve the St. Christopher medal tucked inside -- which he believes to be protecting his father -- Brian follows the thief into the subway...and into the most dangerous adventure of his young life .Unable to get his mother's attention, Brian impulsively follows the woman who has taken the wallet into the city's subways, thereby beginning a journey that will threaten his life and change that of his mother and of the thief, as well. Written with warmth, yet set against a background of menace and thrilling suspense, Silent Night is about courage in the face of adversity, and faith renewed and faith rewarded.

Professional photographer Maggie Holloway revisits the best part of her childhood after she runs into her former stepmother, Nuala Moore, at a Manhattan party. Nuala seems edgy, but Maggie never finds out why, for only days into their reunion, she finds her beloved Nuala murdered. Maggie is the unexpected inheritor of Nuala's Newport home, for which Maggie receives curiously generous, even overpriced, offers from several parties. Nuala had at one time planned on selling the property in order to move into a ritzy retirement home but had suddenly and without explanation changed her mind only days before her death. When Maggie also decides not to sell the property, she becomes the one squeaky cog in an otherwise well-oiled machine of fraud, murder, and deception. At Maggie's side are two suitors: the wealthy Liam, who suddenly begins paying more attention to her after Nuala's death, and the seemingly indifferent Neil, a kindhearted investment banker. Clark has written a clever story with interesting characters, particularly Liam's macabre, death-obsessed cousin, Earl. Mary Frances Wilkens --

Lacey Farrell, the heroine of Mary Higgins Clark's 15th novel, is having a bit of an identity crisis. While working as a real estate agent in New York, Lacey witnessed a client's murder, and now she's in hiding with a new name and a new life. But changing her identity doesn't completely remove Lacey from the web of danger and deceit that surrounds the crime; new clues keep popping up that suggest some kind of link between Lacey's family and the murder. Meanwhile, a new man comes into the heroine's life, further complicating an already murky situation. As any fan will tell you, Mary Higgins Clark never fails to deliver plot twists and turns that are as unexpected as they are thrill

For this marvelously entertaining anthology, these outstanding contributors rose to a unique literary challenge: each penned a tale that ingeniously features a thick fog, a thick book and a thick steak. Contributors include Mary Higgins Clark, Lawrence Block, Edna Buchanan, Carol Higgins Clark, Janet Evanovich, Linda Fairstein, Walter Mosley, Nancy Pickard, Ann Rule and Donald Westlake. From the Publisher, Simon & Schuster Joining together for a good cause brings out the best in today's top mystery and suspense writers! For this marvelously entertaining anthology, these outstanding contributors rose to a unique literary challenge: each penned a tale that ingeniously features a thick fog, a thick book, and a thick steak.

Susan Chandler, district attorney turned psychologist, is host of the popular radio show Dr. Susan. One of her more interesting guests is a psychiatrist who has written extensively about women who have disappeared. Susan finds the topic fascinating, especially the case of Regina Clausen, a highly respected financial advisor who has been missing for several years. Things grow even more intriguing when Susan gets an on-air call from a woman who had encounters similar to Regina's--she was courted on a cruise ship by a handsome man who gave her a ring with the inscription, "You belong to me." On the way to a meeting with Susan, the woman is gravely injured. Coincidence? Susan thinks not. Her prosecutor's instincts kick in, and she begins an investigation that involves a host of suspects, including the trustee of Regina's family's estate, the jealous husband of the mystery caller, and even the psychiatrist-guest himself. What unfolds is a riveting tale of one woman's quest for the truth. Clark is a smart, entertaining storyteller, and although this novel is not her finest, her fans will request it in droves. Mary Frances Wilkens

Nell MacDermott is the politically ambitious granddaughter of a canny politician in Manhattan's silk stocking district, and her grandfather wants her to run for his old congressional seat. But there are rumors that Adam Cauliff, Nell's husband, has been involved in a real estate and construction scam, and until Nell gets to the bottom of this her political future will be clouded. When Adam and his assistant are killed in an explosion aboard his boat, Nell is determined to clear his name. Nudged into action by her nascent psychic powers and a medium who may be her only link to Adam, Nell learns more about her husband's mysterious past than she bargained for and--naturally--stumbles onto a conspiracy that puts her own life in danger. The narrative seems more like an outline for a novel than a novel itself; the characters are sketched rather than fully explored--particularly Nell, whose back story doesn't provide enough information to make her actions understandable. But the pacing is expert, and Clark's dedicated fans will doubtless forgive her for not making this her strongest outing. --Jane Adams

In best-selling Clark's typical fashion, this novel is populated by beautiful, powerful, wealthy people, all of whom have skeletons in their well-filled closets. Molly Carpenter Lasch, a gorgeous socialite married to a handsome doctor and living in affluent Greenwich, Connecticut, finds out her "perfect" husband is having an affair with a nurse. Shortly after, he is brutally murdered, and Molly is discovered asleep in their bed, covered with his blood and unable to remember what happened. The story picks up five years later, when Molly is out of jail on parole. Determined to get her memory back and figure out what really happened that night, she meets with the "other woman" --who is then found murdered in her car. Although Clark spends a lot more time on the superficial than the psychological (we hear plenty about Molly's looks but almost nothing about her jail time), she is a master of suspense and an excellent storyteller. First-rate entertainment. Jenny McLarin --

In Deck the Halls, a story filled with twists and turns, intrigue and danger, as well as a hearty dose of holiday cheer, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark have created a breathless and at the same time remarkably heartwarming story of suspense -- a Christmas classic for many holiday seasons to come. Download Description Joining forces for the first time, mother and daughter suspense superstars bring the best of their unique and beloved personal styles to this masterfully told tale of intrigue and deception. "Deck the Halls" begins when Regan's father, Luke Reilly, mysteriously disappears just before Christmas. For help, Regan turns to her parents' neighbors, with whom she shares a talent for detection. --This text refers to the Digital edition.

Mary Higgins Clark, America's Queen of Suspense, and her daughter, bestselling author Carol Higgins Clark, have followed the successful publication of last year's holiday bestseller Deck the Halls with a heartwarming tale that combines much of the charm of the classic movie "It's a Wonderful Life" with unexpected menace. Meet Sterling Brooks. His was not an exemplary life -- he was too self-absorbed to ever really think about anyone else or make a commitment to the woman he loved. On the other hand, he had endearing qualities. His actual misdeeds were few -- his were sins of omission, not commission. It is a few days before Christmas. For forty-six years Sterling has lingered in the celestial waiting room outside the heavenly gates, awaiting summons by the Heavenly Council. Will he be deemed fit for entrance into heaven? At last the day comes and the council settles on a test for Sterling -- he will be sent back to earth and given an opportunity to prove his worthiness by helping someone else.

Following the breakup of her marriage and her pursuit by an obsessed stalker, criminal defense attourney Emily Graham accepts an offer to work in a major Manhattan law firm. Feeling a need for roots, she buys her ancestral home in New Jersey, which her family sold in 1892, after the disappearance of young Madeline Shapley one of Emily's forbears. Now, more than a century later, as the house is being renovated, the bones of a young woman are found in the backyard. She is identified is Martha Lawrence, who disappeared four years earlier. Cluched in Martha's skeletal hand is the finger bone of another woman with a ring still on it -- a Shapley family heirloom. When Emily investigates the link between her family's past and the recent murder, she provokes a devious and seductive killer, who selects her as his next victim.

Ellie Cavanaugh was only seven when her older sister, Andrea, was murdered near their home in rural Westchester County. It was Ellie's testimony that led to the conviction of a man, who steadfastly denied his guilt, but spent twenty-two years in prison. When he comes up for parole, Ellie protests, but the convicted killer is set free and returns home. Ellie also returns, intent on writing a book that will prove his guilt. But as she delves deeper into her research, she uncovers horrifying facts that shed a new light on her sister's murder. And with each discovery, she comes closer to a confrontation with a desperate killer...

Nicholas Spencer, charismatic head of the medical research company Gen-stone, involved in the development of an anticancer vaccine, suddenly disappears. His private plane crashes en route to Puerto Rico, but his body is not found. Early results of the vaccine seemed highly promising. Yet, coinciding with Nicholas Spencer's disappearance comes news that the FDA is denying approval. Then follows the shocking revelation that Spencer had looted Gen-stone of huge sums of money -- including the lifetime savings of people who had risked every penny they had.

Marcia "Carley" DeCarlo, the thirty-two-year-old columnist for the Wall Street Weekly, is assigned to cover the story. Carley is the stepsister of Spencer's wife, Lynn, an aggressive PR woman and socialite, whom she dislikes and distrusts. That night, she narrowly escapes death when her mansion in Bedford, New York, is set on fire. She turns to Carley, begging her to use her investigative skills to prove that she was not her husband's accomplice.

The definition of an owl had always pleased him: a night bird of prey...sharp talons and soft plumage which permits noiseless flight...applied figuratively to a person of nocturnal habits. 'I am The Owl', he would whisper to himself after he had selected his prey, 'and nighttime is my time.'"

Jean Sheridan, a college dean and prominent historian, sets out to her hometown to attend the twenty-year reunion of Stonecroft Academy alumni, where she is to be honored along with six other members of her class. There is something uneasy in the air: one woman in the group about to be feted, Alison Kendall, a beautiful, high-powered Hollywood agent, drowned in her pool during an early-morning swim. Alison is the fifth woman in the class whose life has come to a sudden, mysterious end.

A young woman is ensnared into returning to a place she had wanted to leave behind forever -- her childhood home. There, at the age of ten, Liza Barton had shot her mother, trying desperately to protect her from her estranged step-father, Ted Cartwright. Despite his claim that the shooting was a deliberate act, the Juvenile Court ruled the death an accident. Many people, however, agreed with Cartwright, and the tabloids compared her to the infamous murderess Lizzie Borden, pointing even to the similarity of their names.

To erase Liza's past, her adoptive parents change her name to Celia. At age twenty-eight, a successful interior designer in Manhattan, she marries a childless sixty-year-old widower, Laurence Foster, and they have a son. Before their marriage, she reveals to him her true identity. Two years later, on his deathbed, he makes her swear never to tell anyone so that their son, Jack, will not carry the stigma of her past. Two years later, Celia is happily remarried. Her peace of mind is shattered when her new husband, Alex Nolan, surprises her with a gift -- the house in Mendham, New Jersey, where she killed her mother. On the day they move in, they find the words little lizzie's place -- beware painted on the lawn, splotches of red paint all over the house, and a skull and crossbones carved into the door.

Alvirah Meehan, the lottery winner turned amateur sleuth, and her husband Willy, private detective Regan Reilly, her new husband Jack, and Regan's parents are all guests on the Royal Mermaid's maiden voyage, the Santa Cruise. The ship's passengers include members of the Oklahoma Readers and Writers group - who are planning a mystery seminar dedicated to a Ghost of Honour, the late Left Hook Louie - as well as assorted other charitable folk all planning on a restful post-Christmas vacation. What the guests don't know is that two escaping criminals have been smuggled on board. The hoped-for tranquility quickly vanishes when a terrified mystery fan swears she has spotted the Ghost of Honour in the ship's chapel, and soon after - while a storm develops outside - an attempt is made on the life of a feeble passenger. As the Royal Mermaid sails on through troubled waters, Alvirah, Regan and Jack are uncovering clues that lead them to dangerous criminals.

Margaret and Steve Frawley celebrate the third birthday of their twin girls, Kelly and Kathy, with an afternoon party in their new home. That evening, Steve and Margaret attend a black-tie dinner in New York. On returning home, the police are in the house, the babysitter has been found unconscious, the children are gone and a note demanding an eight million dollar ransom has been left in their room. Steve firm agrees to pay the ransom. The kidnapper, who identifies himself as the "Pied Piper", makes his terms known - on delivery of the ransom, a call will come revealing the girls' whereabouts. The call comes, but only Kelly is in the car parked behind a deserted restaurant. The driver is dead from a gunshot wound and has left a suicide note, saying he had inadvertently killed Kathy and had dumped her body in the ocean. At the private memorial Mass for Kathy, Kelly tugs Margaret's arm and says: "Mommy, Kathy is very scared of that lady. She wants to come home right now." More unexplainable occurrences follow, indicating that Kelly is in touch with Kathy.

When Kay Lansing marries wealthy widower Peter Carrington, she is well aware of the rumours surrounding the mysterious death of Peter's first wife Grace, who was found floating in the family pool ten years ago, pregnant at the time. Kay also discovers that Peter is a chronic sleepwalker who suffers from periodic nightmares. When the police arrive at her doorstep with a warrant for Peter's arrest in connection with another murder - that of a woman Peter had escorted to a high school senior prom twenty-two years ago - Kay begins to fear that she has married a sleepwalking murderer, and she resolves to find out the truth behind the puzzling deaths. But are the two deaths linked? And why does a melody that Kay cannot identify keep playing in her head every time she approaches the family chapel?

t has been ten years since twenty-one-year-old Charles MacKenzie Jr. ("Mack") went missing. A Columbia University senior, about to graduate and already accepted at Duke University Law School, he walked out of his apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side without a word to his college roommates and has never been seen again. However, he does make one ritual phone call to his mother every year: on Mother's Day. Each time, he assures her he is fine, refuses to answer her frantic questions, then hangs up. Even the death of his father, a corporate lawyer, in the tragedy of 9/11 does not bring him home or break the pattern of his calls.