All Around The Town - Hardcover

Clark, Mary Higgins

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671673653 ISBN 13: 9780671673659

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1992

Synopsis

A student obsessed with her English professor is accused of his murder, but can not remember how her fingerprints could possibly have been found at the scene of the crime. 500,000 first printing. Major ad/promo. Lit Guild Main. Tour.

About this title

About the Author

Mary Higgins Clark's books are world-wide bestsellers. In the U.S. alone, her books have sold over one hundred million copies.

She is the author of thirty-one previous suspense novels. Her first book, a biographical novel about George Washington, was re-issued with the title, Mount Vernon Love Story, in June 2002. Her memoir, Kitchen Privileges, was published by Simon & Schuster in November 2002. Her first children's book, Ghost Ship, illustrated by Wendell Minor, was published in April 2007 as a Paula Wiseman Book/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

She is co-author, with her daughter Carol Higgins Clark, of five holiday suspense novels Deck the Halls (2000), He Sees You When You're Sleeping (2001), The Christmas Thief (2004), Santa Cruise (2006), and Dashing through the Snow (2008).

Mary Higgins Clark was chosen by Mystery Writers of America as Grand Master of the 2000 Edgar Awards. An annual Mary Higgins Clark Award sponsored by Simon & Schuster, to be given to authors of suspense fiction writing in the Mary Higgins Clark tradition, was launched by Mystery Writers of America during Edgars week in April 2001. She was the 1987 president of Mystery Writers of America and, for many years, served on their Board of Directors. In May 1988, she was Chairman of the International Crime Congress.

Visit her on the web at www.maryhigginsclark.com.

Reviews

Effectively exploiting her canny knack for placing women and children in deadly peril, Clark has pulled out all the stops in her newest effort (after Loves Music, Loves to Dance ). As a child, Laurie Kenyon was kidnapped and abused by a creepy pair named Bic and Opal, and she developed complex multiple personalities as a result. Now she is a college senior and a prime suspect in the murder of an attractive male professor. Might one of her personalities have been responsible? If so, can her protective sister Sarah, now an ace lawyer? confusing as is--if she's prosecutor, she wouldn't be defending her sister , defend her successfully? And will Bic and Opal, now successful televangelists, manage to silence her if she seems likely to identify them as her childhood tormentors? The plotting is swift and slickly managed, with a genuinely surprising twist toward the end. Clark wastes no time on extraneous details of character and atmosphere, but the very skills that make her a popular fast read mean that readers who look for nuance, flavor and shading even in their suspense thrillers will find their cravings unsatisfied. Still, of its efficient, machine-made type, this is a suspenseful page-turner. 500,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection; author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

For her ninth sure-fire bestseller, Clark returns to what she does best: using a threatened child (this time, a regressive college-student traumatized by a childhood kidnapping) to grab you by the throat and shake well. Back in 1974, four-year-old Laurie Kenyon was abducted from her posh New Jersey home by Bic and Opal Hawkins, a pair of hippies who raped and terrorized her for two years before the heat got so close they turned her loose. Now she's an honor student at Clinton College who unwittingly harbors four personalities--sexy Leona, truculent Kay, four-year-old Debbie, and a nine-year-old boy--that she's developed to keep her childhood memories at bay. Meanwhile, her kidnappers have transformed themselves into TV preachers on the brink of stardom who keep putting scary photos, knives, and severed chicken heads in Laurie's way in case she recognizes them and wants to speak out. The flash point comes with the murder of personable prof Allan Grant, who'd just gone before the administration with proof that the steamy letters from ``Leona'' he'd been getting were typed on Laurie's typewriter. When Laurie finds herself standing over Grant unable to remember whether or not she killed him, it's up to big sister Sarah, fanatically dedicated to protecting Laurie, to quit the D.A.'s office, take charge of Laurie's defense, and incidentally begin a chaste romance with Justin Donnelly, who's trying to tease the truth out of all those alter egos even as Bic Opal step up their campaign from threats to violence. Not enough menace for you? Clark even throws in the mystery of who really killed Grant, though her heart's not in it: broad hints from the outset will tip off all but the most witless readers. No whodunit, then--but Clark's legion of fans, enthralled by her undeniable skill in pushing their buttons, won't even notice. Just be grateful the author isn't running for office. (Literary Guild Split Dual Selection for July) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0671673653
• ISBN 13: 9780671673659
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304