On the Street Where You Live
by Mary Higgins Clark
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mary Higgins ClarkEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-04-01
ISBN: 0671004530
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Pocket Books
Book Reviews of On the Street Where You Live
Book Review: No Zing Left In Mary Higgins Clark's Writing
Summary: 3 Stars
I started reading books written by Mary Higgins Clark when I was a teenager, and loved them. They held my interested, were always full of twists that you couldn't see coming, and you couldn't wait to pick up the next one. Unfortunately the last few years, I don't feel that strong urge to wait at the bookstore for the next release by this author. On the Street Where You Live was no exception to this and left me feeling blah.
The story centers around Emily Graham, a defense attorney who recently returned to her ancestral home in Spring Lake, a sleepy resort type town. There are so many factors leading to the plot, it takes Clark too many pages to get the action going. First we need to know that Emily befriended an up-and-coming computer genius (Eric), who had the office next door to hers when they were both starting out in business. She won a huge lawsuit for him, and in return he gave her shares in his new company. She made millions when she sold those stocks a few years later.
Next the reader needs to understand that Emily has enemies, all of which she is trying to escape. One enemy is the ex-husband who sued her after their marriage ended (when she caught him in bed with her best friend) trying to get part of her millions. Another is the guy who was convicted of stalking her because his mother was killed and he thinks she defended a murderer. Oh it's so very confusing with all of this going on!
So, we get back to the main story about fifty or so pages into the book, unlike Iris Johansen who has someone killed off on page 2 of her books! Emily buys back the family home that was once her great-great-grandmother's in hopes to flee the chaos in her life before she returns to New York to work for a prestigious law firm. This is when the action starts.
The previous owners were having a pool constructed in the backyard, and Emily decides to continue with the plans. As the backhoe is digging, a body is unearthed, believed to be that of Martha Lawrence, who had disappeared four years prior. In her hand she is grasping a finger bone with a sapphire ring that had belonged to Madeline Shapley, Emily's great-great aunt. Seems both had disappeared on September 7th, but 105 years apart.
Then there are two more bodies found. Again, both women disappeared on the same day, but a century apart. The public starts to believe in a serial killer that has been reincarnated. Emily doesn't buy into it and begins to do research to find out the similarities into the disappearances. As Emily begins her quest to find the identity of the killer, the list of suspects seems endless: a retired college present with a secret, his angry wife, a restaurant owner with memory lapses, etc.
The list of characters would have been fine if they had been exciting. One professional reviewer has described Clark's character development like this: "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." Seems appropriate to me!
The ending is predictable, and the subplots are boring. I didn't care that the restaurant owner is trying to sell his place and will lose his shirt with the only offer out there. I didn't care that the retired professor had a fling and is trying to cover it up and is being blackmailed. These subplots are not developed enough to make them interesting.
So, bottom line is On the Street Where You Live is typical of recent Mary Higgins Clark books. They lack the zing that her earlier books had, thus becoming average. So why would I recommend them, they still hold a modicum of entertainment.
Summary of On the Street Where You Live
In the gripping new novel from the Queen of Suspense, a woman is haunted by two grisly murders separated by more than a century, yet somehow, inextricably linked...ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE
Following a nasty divorce and the trauma of being stalked, criminal defense attorney Emily Graham leaves Albany to work in Manhattan. Craving roots, she buys her ancestral home, a Victorian house in the seaside resort town of Spring Lake, New Jersey. Her family sold the house in 1892, after one of Emily's forebears, Madeline Shapley, then a young girl, disappeared.
As the house is renovated and a pool dug, a skeleton is found and identiWed as Martha Lawrence, a young Spring Lake woman who vanished several years ago. Within her hand is the Wnger bone of another woman, with a ring -- a Shapley family heirloom -- still on it. Determined to Wnd the connection between the two murders, Emily becomes a threat to a seductive killer...who chooses her as the next victim.
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. --Barrie Trinkle
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