Hide Yourself Away

July 12, 2004
This plodding seventh thriller in Clark's popular KEY News series is distinguished chiefly by the author's insider perspective on major network TV. Grace Callahan, 32-year-old divorced single mom, is the oldest (and by far the neediest) of four TV interns competing for a permanent spot on the crew of KEY to America
, a major network news show, when the team departs to do a weeklong remote broadcast from historic Newport, R.I. Forced to leave her 11-year-old daughter, Lucy, in the care of her philandering ex-husband and his Barbie doll wife (who are suing for full custody), Grace develops a crush on her producer, B.J. D'Elia, and feels drably inferior to fellow intern Joss Vickers, super-chic daughter of a wealthy Newport family. The story is kicked into motion by the discovery of the skeleton of a socialite who disappeared 14 years before in an old Underground Railroad tunnel ("a human skull and bones, swaddled in yards of gold lamé"), and the number of suspects and clues (smelly red herrings) rapidly proliferate to include a sleazy local scrimshander, a tattoo artist and a clambake master—all this before Grace's fellow interns begin to fall victim to the paranoid murderer. Even Clark's most faithful fans will be fatigued by the repetitive soap opera plot, which wears on and on until virtually everyone is suspect. Agent, Laura Dail.

March 15, 2004
Cyrano meets Chocolat: in Rome, a handsome waiter courts visiting American Laura with his good cooking-which is, in fact, whipped up by his timid pal, Bruno, who's besotted with Laura. First novelist Capella gets a five-city tour.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2004
It shouldn't have been like this for Grace Callahan. She was supposed to be an established news reporter by the time she was in her thirties. Instead, she took the path of a young mother, and now, without a husband and with an 11-year-old daughter, Lucy, she's finally finishing college. Grace lands an internship with KEY News, and though she's older than her peers, she plans to do whatever it takes to land a full-time position. An out-of-town assignment investigating human remains found in what used to be an Underground Railroad tunnel seems just the thing to test her skills as a reporter, but Grace isn't sure she can outsmart a cutthroat fellow intern. Meanwhile, her estranged husband is threatening to sue for sole custody of Lucy, and she fears that her widowed father can't handle the job of being Lucy's full-time nanny. Clark, herself a CBS news producer, knows the ins and outs of a broadcast newsroom, and she gives the setting plenty of verisimilitude. A nice mix of mystery and domestic drama.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)