All I Could Say Was "Wow"

I recently re-discovered my enjoyment of Mary Higgins Clark. Having read a majority of her earliest novels while I was in high school and college, it was exciting to stumble upon some of her more recently written mysteries during a trip to the library. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of her latest novel Where Are You Now? only a month after it was released.

Wow
I read the summary briefly, but there are some authors with whom I will just grab anything that has their name, not even checking to see if the story seems to my liking. If you have any contemplation about reading this book, and you are standing in the library or bookstore with it in your hands, do me a favor: read the first two dozen pages. If you can put it down after that, well, I wouldn’t even know what to say to you afterwards.

It’s Mother’s Day Eve, and for the tenth time in as many years, 26 year old Carolyn MacKenzie sits with her mother, anticipating a phone call that will hopefully happen during any moment of the 24 hour holiday. Carolyn’s older brother, Mack, walked out of his apartment building over a decade ago, and completely disappeared. Once a year, on Mother’s Day, he will call and tell his mother that he loves her. This year, however, Carolyn is sick of watching her mother’s life deteriorate with the uncertainty of the well being of her son, and the fear that one year the call won’t come. This time, when Mack calls, Carolyn gets on the phone and tells her brother in no uncertain terms that she is going to find him, and that he will not make their lives so stressful and unhappy anymore. He immediately hangs up, and from that moment on, Carolyn’s life turns upside down.

What follows is an amazing story with suspense, thrill, romance, greed, and heartache. With each step Carolyn takes towards finding her brother, she challenges her current relationships, and finds disturbing behavior and new connections to old acquaintances. She literally submerges herself into her “investigation”. Then another girl disappears, and the police start looking at Carolyn, because this girl also phones home, and promises to phone on Mother’s Day. Two other girls have disappeared since Mack has been gone; suddenly all three disappearances are linked together, and Mack, in absentia, becomes a murder suspect, and Carolyn an accomplice. Carolyn fights to find her brother, find the kidnapper, and find the truth.

Wow All The Way
This book had me so riveted, I am not kidding, I finished it in one day. An hour lunch break, and about five hours of lounging after work, was what it took for me to find out exactly what happened, at least what the author would allow us to know. Mary Higgins Clark is a phenomenal suspense writer, knowing exactly when to switch the view of the story (we experience the happening from the eyes of the perpetrator, Carolyn, the police, and others) to keep the reader hanging, but without getting confusing. I don’t really have a complaint about this or anything else she has written. While she is not afraid to kill off someone we may come to like in a story, I have never found her characters’ deaths to be unnecessarily violent (which is why I would rather read than watch TV!). It’s believable enough of a story, yet doesn’t cause me to hate the author. Her language is simple yet descriptive, getting the reader’s imagination going yet still allowing you to relax and get pulled into the story without having difficulty understanding it.

This particular book has some amazing twists and turns, and even though I thought I had about figured it out, there was plenty to throw me for a loop at the end. I don’t where she comes up with these ideas-it was a great read! If you’re a fan of Clark, make sure you get your hands on this book. If you’re not, this would be an excellent place to start!

Released April 8, 2008
Simon & Schuster
304 pgs.

For more information regarding this author and her work, visit http://www.simonsays.com/mhclark