On the Street Where you Live (39 page)

“When Maggie accompanies Greta Shipley to the cemetery to visit Nuala's grave and those of her other friends, she notices something odd. She decides to return and take photographs. When she goes back with the pictures, she makes a strange discovery, not only about Nuala's grave, but also the graves of four other women who recently died at Latham Manor. Soon after, Greta Shipley herself dies and Maggie begins her own investigation.

“As Maggie begins to unravel the thread linking Nuala's murder to the deaths of the women at Latham Manor, she comes closer and closer to uncovering the identity of a killer with his own strange signature. What she does not know is that she is now the killer's target and that each clue brings her closer to an unimaginable fate.”

• My Gal Sunday: Henry and Sunday Stories
revolves around Henry Britland IV, a former president of the United States, and his bride, Congresswoman Sandra O'Brien. Tell us about Henry and Sunday.

“Henry is young, rich and handsome, the scion of a wealthy and influential family. Sandra, known as Sunday, is the daughter of a New Jersey motorman. I derived the idea for these characters from my favorite radio series as a child, the once wildly popular soap opera,
Our Gal Sunday.”

• 
What are the stories about?

“The four stories in
My Gal Sunday
deal with the
indictment of Henry's close friend and former Secretary of State for the murder of his mistress, the kidnapping of Sunday, the mysterious disappearance from the Britlands' yacht of a Latin American prime minister and a Christmas story about a little boy who has been abducted and is reunited with his family by Henry and Sunday.”

• 
Some of the characters in
My Gal Sunday
are portrayed tongue-in-cheek. Isn't that unusual in your writings?

“In my novels, I set out to scare people. Here, it is suspense with a touch of whimsy.”

• 
How did you acquire the knowledge of the presidential lifestyle and Secret Service protocol reflected in these stories?

“I have been a guest at the Bush and Clinton White Houses and also spent time in Washington doing research on protection of former presidents by the Secret Service.”

• 
What is the theme of your novel
Pretend You Don't See Her?

“It revolves around a young woman who has to go into the federal witness protection program after witnessing a murder. Lacey Farrell, a real estate agent in the New York firm of Parker & Parker, is asked by Isabelle Waring to handle the sale of the apartment of her daughter, Heather Landi, a young singer and actress who had been killed in a car accident on her way back from a weekend of skiing in Vermont. Isabelle never believed that Heather's
death was an accident and moves into her apartment, obsessively looking for clues. Heather's father, however, famed restaurateur Jimmy Landi, does not share her doubts. He insists that Isabelle, his former wife, accept their daughter's death and sell the apartment. Lacey takes a prospective buyer to see it—Curtis Caldwell, a lawyer from a prestigious law firm. He makes an immediate offer. It is with horror that Lacey encounters him at the apartment later that day and realizes that he is Isabelle's killer.

“Isabelle had made a dying wish to Lacey—to take a sheaf of papers to Heather's father. It was Heather's journal which, she believed, held the key to her death. To keep her word, Lacey does not give the papers to the police and, before handing them to Jimmy Landi, makes a copy for herself. While Lacey is in trouble with the police for removing evidence from the crime scene, her description of the killer enables her to identify him—Sandy Savarano, a professional hit man who had eluded jail by staging his own death some years ago. Savarano now receives orders to silence Lacey, who knows more about Isabelle's and Heather's deaths than would allow her to live.”

• 
Your novel
You Belong to Me
examines an intriguing topic. Tell us about it.

“Women traveling alone are receptive to romance. Even sophisticated women can be gullible and lured into dubious, sometimes even fatal, relationships by men who prey on them.

“Regina Clausen, a very successful, forty-three-year-old investment banker, had been traveling alone
on a segment of the world cruise of the luxury liner
Gabrielle.
She had disembarked in Hong Kong, saying she would rejoin the ship when it docked in Japan. Her departure aroused no suspicion. Regina Clausen, however, did not return to the ship and was never seen again.

“Her case is discussed, three years later, during a radio program about vanished women on the New York–based syndicated call-in show,
Ask Dr. Susan,
hosted by psychologist Susan Chandler. A smart, attractive woman in her early thirties, she had been a district attorney before changing careers. On realizing that her program on vanished women has triggered off a series of murders, she starts to investigate the case of Regina Clausen's disappearance—and becomes a target for the killer.”

• 
In your novel
We'll Meet Again
medical issues are central to the plot. What are these?

“The inner workings of an HMO, in which patients' needs are secondary to financial considerations, the choice of ending or prolonging life and risky medical experiments are themes in the novel.

“The novel begins with the murder of Dr. Gary Lasch, prominent Greenwich, Connecticut, doctor and founder of an HMO, Remington Health Management. He is found dead in his study at home, his skull crushed by a blow with a heavy bronze sculpture, and his wife, Molly, is found in bed covered with blood. Molly claims to have no memory of events on the night of the crime. Based on the housekeeper's testimony incriminating her, Molly is charged with his murder. As a conviction seems
inevitable, her lawyer plea-bargains the charge down to manslaughter.

“Released on parole from prison six years later, Molly asserts her innocence. She asks an old schoolmate, Fran Simmons, an investigative reporter and anchor for a true-crime series, to research and produce a program on Gary Lasch's death. Probing into the private life of Gary Lasch and the affairs of Remington Health Management, they become enmeshed in a web of intrigue—and targets for murder.”

• 
You delve into the mysteries of psychic phenomena and communication with the dead in your novel
Before I Say Good-Bye.
What is the premise of the plot?

“Nell McDermott, a young woman aspiring to a political career, had quarreled with her husband, architect Adam Cauliff, the day he died. The quarrel was precipitated by her intent to run for Congress against his wishes, to take the seat long held by her grandfather, Cornelius McDermott. That evening, Adam's cabin cruiser, the
Cornelia II,
blows up with him and three others aboard in a New York harbor.

“As the investigation into the explosion of the boat proceeds, Nell learns that it was not an accident, but a bomb.

“Remorseful over her angry last words to Adam, Nell visits a medium claiming to be Adam's channel. In her quest for answers about the explosion, she receives messages from the medium transmitted by Adam. The story reaches a powerful climax in her final encounter with the medium, in which she learns the truth—a truth she can't be allowed to tell.”

• 
You have collaborated on two books with your daughter Carol Higgins Clark. Tell us about these.

“They are two holiday novels,
Deck the Halls
and
He Sees You When You're Sleeping.

“In
Deck the Halls,
we bring together our two sleuths: Alvirah Meehan, the sixtyish cleaning woman turned amateur detective after winning a forty-million-dollar New York State Lottery prize, and savvy young detective Regan Reilly, the protagonist of Carol's novels.

“Regan Reilly, a private investigator based in Los Angeles, comes home to New York to spend Christmas with her father, funeral home director Luke Reilly, and mother, famous mystery writer Nora Regan Reilly, who is in the hospital with a broken leg. There, she finds her father at Nora's bedside. ‘I've got a funeral to go to, a dentist appointment and then I'd better see about buying a tree,' says Luke on leaving the hospital. Luke, however, doesn't show up at the funeral or the dentist's office. He and his driver, twenty-six-year-old Rosita Gonzalez, the mother of two small boys, have been kidnapped and the kidnappers are asking for a one-million-dollar ransom. While Alvirah and Regan try to track down the kidnappers, Luke and Rosita are being held captive by two inept yet dangerous kidnappers on a houseboat in the Hudson, while a fierce winter storm is gathering force.”

• 
What is the theme of
He Sees You When You're Sleeping?

“It revolves around a man sent back to earth to redeem himself. Sterling Brooks had been cooling his
heels for forty-six years in the Celestial Waiting Room. When, at last, he is summoned before the Heavenly Council, he is found wanting for admission through the heavenly gates: In his lifetime, he had never shown compassion. But now he would be given another chance.

“Sterling finds himself at New York's Rockefeller Center, where a little girl, Marissa, an outstanding skater, catches his eye. When he looks at her more closely, he sees she is crying. She may be the one I've been sent here for, Sterling realizes, and decides to find out what is troubling her. He learns that her parents are divorced and that her father, Billy Campbell, a handsome young singer, and attractive, vivacious grandmother, Nor Kelly, owner of a popular restaurant, have disappeared. For a year, Marissa hasn't seen them and doesn't know why.

“Christmas Eve will be Marissa's eighth birthday and Sterling promises to try to set things right for her by then. He asks the Heavenly Council to take him back in time one year. He learns that Billy Campbell and Nor Kelly had become targets of two mobsters, the Badgett brothers, whom they had overheard plotting a crime. With their lives in danger, their only recourse was to go into protective custody and stay there until the law could catch up with the Badgetts—a remote prospect. Sterling finds a way to dupe the Badgett brothers and reunite Marissa with her family. On his return to earth, he also learns what he had missed before—the meaning of caring for others.”

• 
What is your next novel?

“Titled
Daddy's Little Girl,
it is the story of a
young girl's murder and a sister's quest for the identity of the killer.

“Ellie Cavanaugh was seven years old when her fifteen-year-old sister Andrea was murdered in Oldham-on-the-Hudson, a rural village in Westchester County. There were three suspects: Rob Westerfield, a wealthy nineteen-year-old whom Andrea had been secretly dating; Paul Stroebel, a sixteen-year-old who had a crush on Andrea; and Will Nebels, the fortyish local handyman.

“It was Ellie who had led her parents to the hideout in which Andrea's body was found—a secret hideaway in which she met her friends. And it was Ellie who was blamed by her parents for her sister's death, for not telling them about this secret place the night Andrea was missing. Her testimony was vital evidence in the conviction of one of the men. Steadfastly denying his guilt, he spent the next twenty-two years in prison.

“When he comes up for parole, Ellie, now an investigative reporter for an Atlanta newspaper, protests his release. The convicted killer, however, is set free and returns to Oldham. Determined to thwart his attempts to whitewash his reputation, Ellie also returns to Oldham, planning to write a series of articles conclusively proving his guilt. Her research reveals horrifying facts which may have led up to her sister's murder, and each new piece of the puzzle brings her closer to a confrontation with a now-desperate killer.”

DEBRA LILL

MARY HIGGINS CLARK
is the author of twenty-four worldwide bestsellers. She lives in Saddle River, New Jersey.

By Mary Higgins Clark

On the Street Where You Live

Deck the Halls
(with Carol Higgins Clark)

Before I Say Good-Bye

We'll Meet Again

All Through the Night

You Belong to Me

Pretend You Don't See Her

My Gal Sunday

Moonlight Becomes You

Silent Night

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

The Lottery Winner

Remember Me

I'll Be Seeing You

All Around the Town

Loves Music, Loves to Dance

The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stories

While My Pretty One Sleeps

Weep No More, My Lady

Stillwatch

A Cry in the Night