The Second Time Around

Is Carley being given an insider's opportunity to learn what really happened when the dynamic and charismatic CEO of a biotech company, who is married to her stepsister, goes missing? Or is she being manipulated by this stepsister whom she has barely met and who is eager to distance herself from her husband? This plot could come right out of today's headlines of corporate greed and ruthlessness and their devastating effect on small shareholders. Jan Maxwell's narration is steady and clear. With a slight air of detachment, she adopts a tone fitting to the main character and treats all the characters evenhandedly. J.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

April 7, 2003
There's something special about Clark's thrillers, and it's not just the gentleness with which the bestselling writer approaches her often lurid subject matter (in this one, for instance, there are numerous killings, but all occur off-page). Special above all is the compassion she extends to her characters—heroines, villains and supporting cast alike. In this latest effort, she conjures empathy even toward a mass killer, whose murderous spree has been sparked by a corporate crime. The smoothly told tale is narrated partly from the third-person perspective of the killer, and partly from the first-person point of view of Wall Street Weekly
correspondent Carley De Carlo. Carley is the stepsister of Lynn Spencer, whose charismatic husband, Nicholas, dies in the crash of his small plane as he is fleeing arrest for looting the medical company he founded, which had made claims of a cancer cure, now proved false. Myriad investors have lost much, sometimes everything; one is Ned Cooper, whose beloved wife died as a consequence of Nicholas Spencer's thievery, and who determines to take revenge, setting off on a killing spree. Assigned to do a feature about the Spencer case, Carley digs deep, uncovering clues to a conspiracy within Spencer's medical company, as well as to the possibility that the cancer cure worked after all. Can she get to the bottom of the mess before Ned Cooper, or the possible conspirators, take her out? Clark's fans know the answer to that question, but what the novel lacks in suspense it makes up for in grace, charm and solid storytelling. 750,000 first printing; BOMC, Literary Guild, Mystery Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection. (Apr. 15).

Jan Maxwell delivers a strong performance in the latest suspense by Mary Higgins Clark. Financial columnist Marcia "Carley" DeCarlo is assigned to cover the case when Nicholas Spencer, of the medical research company Gen-Stone, disappears. Gen-Stone had been reported to be on the brink of an anticancer vaccine when it was revealed that Spencer had embezzled funds. As Carley investigates, her life is threatened by individuals who don't want her to learn the true story. Maxwell shows her range as she performs a number of suspects, from the socialite wife to the vulnerable father of a cancer victim. She handles the transitions between characters with ease and keeps the story moving at a quick pace. K.M.D. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine