Two Little Girls in Blue
Mary Higgins Clark
Simon & Schuster, Apr 2006, $25.95
ISBN: 0743264908

In Ridgefield, Connecticut, Margaret and Steve Frawley love their preschool twin girls. When Kathy and Kelly turn three, their parents throw a mini birthday party. Once the children go to sleep they leave them with a trusted babysitter and travel to New York to attend a gala.

Always checking on her beloved children, Margaret calls their home, but no one picks up the phone. Frantic, she calls her hometown police, who immediately arrive at the Frawley residence, even as the frenzied couple rushes home. The children are gone and a ransom note demands eight million or else. The Frawleys pay, but the vehicle allegedly containing their children only holds Kelly and a dead driver, whose apparent suicide note states that Kathy has died. Kelly insists otherwise as she has a special bond to her twin, who she adamantly claims is sending her telepathic messages. Her mother is her only believer at first, but soon her father and the FBI begin to accept that something extraordinary is going on between two apparently living twins, which give them hope that they can rescue Kathy.

No one writes suspense of the heart better than the grand mistress Mary Higgins Clark. Her latest is a terrific thriller that grips the audience from the moment that the phone is not answered, and never slows down as law enforcement led by a preschooler chase the kidnappers along the northeast corridor. The action-packed storyline works because the grief of the parents and the link between the siblings seems genuine. TWO LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE plays on our worst fears of a stranger harming our children, but does it so entertainingly well.