Do You Want to Know a Secret?

November 2, 1998
The behind-the-scenes commotions and rivalries of national television news provide a lively background for this debut thriller. Clark, a producer and writer at CBS News (and the former daughter-in-law of Mary Higgins Clark), spins a tightly knit whodunit with engaging characters and a suspenseful plot. Eliza Blake, a young mother and widow, is a rising star at KEY-TV, where she coanchors the morning news. After the network's revered evening anchorman, Bill Kendall, is found dead in his New York apartment, Blake finds herself competing for Kendall's assignments with his nefarious heir apparent, Pete Carlson. Soon others close to Blake are killed, and her world is shaken by her fears for her daughter's safety, and for her own. Clark's speedy, clear prose offers readers her insider's view of the broadcast-news business as KEY goes on location, conducts live TV interviews and covers a national political convention. She draws her hot topics from real headlines--AIDS, presidential campaign tactics and politicians' sex lives among them--and her journalists debate very current questions. ("Someone's got to draw the line somewhere as to what is personal in a public figure's life," one says). The few stereotyped minor characters--the slavishly devoted secretary, the homeless schizophrenic whose obsession provides a clue to the murders--don't detract from Clark's refreshing surprise ending, a very '90s version of "the butler did it."

July 1, 1998
A newswoman gets into trouble when she investigates an anchorman's suspicious death. From a CBS News writer/ producer who is--get this--Mary Higgins Clark's ex-daughter-in-law.

October 15, 1998
Sound bite^-length chapters tell a tale of parental love, infidelity, and ruthless ambition. While focusing on widowed mother and TV newswoman Eliza Blake, we also come to know the mysteriously dead anchorman Bill Kendall, a young priest in Newark, a homeless man who has collected a brass menagerie, a crooked judge, an insipid politician, his love-starved wife, and the Machiavellian campaign manager who is pulling their strings. It seems that every one of them has a secret that can destroy a career or a life. The quick-paced segues keep the tension up as the stakes go higher, eventually leading to a string of murders all in the interest of keeping secrets from being revealed. Clark, the former daughter-in-law of reigning suspense doyenne, Mary Higgins Clark, provides an entertaining read, a perfect escape for airplane trips or waiting rooms. ((Reviewed October 15, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)

March 15, 1999
In Clark's debut, a newswoman probes an anchor's suspicious death, a move that proves to be bad for her health. The story is told "in a series of soundbites, ...[which] destroys the suspense of waiting for the killer to strike." Still, the book went out with a first printing of 20,000 copies and came back for 5000 additional copies, and it was a featured alternate of the Mystery Guild, the Literary Guild, and the Doubleday Book Club. Clark's being the former daughter-in-law of Mary Higgins Clark perhaps didn't hurt. (LJ 10/15/98)