Mary Higgins Clark, I Heard That Song Before

I Heard That Song Before

Mary Higgins Clark

Simon & Schuster, April 2007, $25.95, 318 pp.

ISBN 0743264916

The landscaper's daughter on the Carrington estate in Englewood, New Jersey, Kay Lansing snuck onto the second floor of the mansion to see the hidden chapel. While she was there she heard two people arguing and the woman was threatening to blackmail the man. Twenty-two years later, Kay visits the estate once more to ask the owner Peter Carrington if she could use the place for a charity function. He reluctantly agrees and the event is a success.

Kay and Peter have a courtship and five weeks later they get married. Kay knows that he is a "person of interest" in the disappearance two decades ago of Susan Althrob who most believe is dead. Many people think he killed his wife after he found her drunk when she was over seven-months pregnant. Kay knows all this but believes Peter is innocent even when new evidence surfaces and Peter is charged with murdering Susan. Using cadaver dogs, the police find the body of Kay's father who everyone believed committed suicide a few year ago. Although Kay begins to wonder who is behind the killings, she is determined to believe her husband is innocent and hires the private investigation who got enough evidence for the police to arrest Peter to find evidence that will exonerate him, not knowing that someone is watching her patiently for her to make a wrong move.

Mary Higgins Cark is the recognized grandmistress of the suspense genre and her latest work, I HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE, is full of apprehension, but feels more gothic in tone than her other novels because of the location, the accused, and the believing, strong-willed heroine. The suspense levels are so stratospheric with all the unexpected twists and turns pointing to different characters with motives to commit murder that the audience will wonder who really has the will to kill.

Harriet Klausner