All Around The Town

If you've read Clark and have enjoyed her work previously, then you will most likely find yourself enjoying this book as well.

Clark is a very fast paced writer, she doesn't bother with any characterisms or back stories that are unrelated to her specific theme, which is always an event, usually a murder.

Her characters are always extremely sympathetic and that is what brings Clarks readers back to her again and again, she writes about people that you can sympathize with, or that you can feel sympathy for.

In this book, who could not feel for a four year old child who is abducted and abused and continues to suffer from her experiences into adulthood? The songs and hymns that are replayed in her memories are extremely frightening and have a creepy effect.

I think MPD (multiple personality disorder)is also represented quite well here on a very general basis ofcourse. It's never quite so easy, but it does show cause and effect.

There were two things I found rather mediocre...and that is her choice to make the abductor an evangelist. I found this rather uninspired and felt she could have done far better in that estimation and something that I have found rather annoying (but for Clark and her characters it is something convenient) is the fact that Clark's "killers" are always clever enough to pull off the act of murder, and show traits of antisocial disorder and psychopathy, so inevitably they are able to keep their secret safe until they are confronted by law enforcement or investigators with what is always circumstantial evidence and they always confess. They offer little resistence and just tell all! So simple, so convenient and completely unrealistic. That part of Clark's writing is recurrent and annoying for me. I am sure detectives would love for crimes to work out the way they do in Clark's novels. They wouldn't have to do much if they did.

Other than those few annoyances, I enjoy her stories and appreciate her pace and the fact that she writes about characters you grow to care for.

I vary rarely read books more than once, but this one is too good not to read it multiple times (ha! ha! No pun intended). Ms. Clark does a wonderful job of getting the facts straight for children who are a victim of kidnapping and the horrid things poor Laurie experinced. She does a great job of presenting muliple personality disorder (now called disassociative disorder. When reading this book, I could not put it down. First thing in the morning I went to finish it up. I love Mary's mysteries, but this is one of my favorites. It is a toss up between this one and A Cry in the Night. The plots are very unique. She is a wonderful writer. You will not be disappointed if you purchase this book. I cannot see how anyone would dislike it. By the way Bic is creepy!!!

Mary Higgins Clark's "All Around the Town" would have gotten four stars from me if there had been a little less predictability throughout the book. Every character seemed to show up when and where he or she was needed at the exact moment of crisis. However, that did not keep me from reading this mystery, which is characteristic of this veteran writer's style, in one sitting. It is suspenseful and still a page-turner. Character development of the two Kenyon sisters is very good, but I would have loved to know more about the background of the two perpatrators of the abduction that takes place in this story.

Laurie and Sarah Kenyon are the two sisters who live a great life with their parents in an affluent neighborhood. When Laurie was four she was abducted and kept for two years by a husband-wife team and a couple of years later left on a doorstep to be found and returned home. Laurie returned home barely the same as when she left. After growing up and going off to college, she is accused of killing her English professor. Her sister, Sarah, is by now a lawyer, and gives up her job to represent Laurie and to support her through her difficult days.

This is a dark mystery and one that we see all too often in the headlines of newspapers and news broadcasts today. It is obvious that the author did her research on the psychiatric aspects of characters in the novel, but I am not sure how accurately they are represented here. I doubt if the illness that one of the characters develops in the story can be summoned into its full-blown aspects or dealt with as quickly as it is in the book. However, it is fiction and still a good story that I enjoyed very much.

Mary Higgins Clark has always been a favorite of mine when it comes to easy reading and mysteries, and to be sure I will be reading more of her books.