Cinderella Murder

Two terrific authors have teamed up to write a new series. While this one is Book 2, it does fine as a stand alone. And as always, recommend starting with I'VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN. It gives a lot of background on the characters and all those little nuances that make them feel like family.

Under Suspicion is a new TV series .... taking cold cases and presenting them to a television audience in the hope that they can be solved. (Think America's Most Wanted).

Television Producer Laurie Moran finds the next story to showcase on her new program ...The Cinderella Murder ... so named because the young woman who was murdered was only wearing one show.

It's been 30 years and the killer has never been found. Laurie hopes if she can get all the victims' family and friends together, the killer will show his or her face.

There are several suspects ... her boyfriend who cheated on her .... the two roommates who have secrets they've never told, the computer nerd who had a huge crush on her, the movie producer she was on her way to audition for the night she was killed.

I have never been disappointed with Mary Higgins Clark .. her stories have plenty of suspense, with a tiny bit of romance. This was well-written and I was surprised at the ending. Easy to read. Very enjoyable.

Highly recommend!

Laurie Moran fights her boss for the right to investigate, for her new show, a twenty year old unsolved murder of a young college woman. It will mean moving the entire operation to California. As always with this author the peeling away at layers keeps you intrigued and involved until the last page. What seems to be so obvious is definitely not. This author plots an intricate and interesting story.

Nice entry to the Under Suspicion series. Laurie Moran is the producer of a cold case television series called “Under Suspicion.” Not only is the show successful, but it brought closure to Laurie as the first show solved the murder of her husband. Now Laurie has become aware of a twenty-year-old case where a budding actress attending UCLA was found murdered in a park, near the home of a film director, with one shoe on – hence the Cinderella murder.

Laurie would like nothing more to solve this case on her show. And there are plenty of suspects, who agree to appear on the show to clear their names. To not do it would seem suspicious. What Laurie finds is a gold mine of eclectic characters with lot of heretofore unknown secrets. The mounting pressure puts Laurie and her team in danger, but gets her closer to the sophisticated suspect. This is a nice, quick-paced, easy-reading story – not profound, but a good effort.

As a Mary Higgins Clark fan for decades, I found this book very disappointing. Perhaps MHC has lost her edge - or perhaps this was a collaboration that shouldn't have happened. I know nothing about the work of Alafair Burke, and I have no idea why MHC felt it necessary to collaborate on this book, but... it didn't work.

What makes a Mary Higgins Clark book (typically) so un-put-downable is the suspense that is built up from the very earliest chapters. The tension keeps ratcheting up as the book progresses. But what is it that contributes to such suspense?

First, there is a clearly defined potential victim. The heroine of a MHC book is always clearly defined from the beginning as "lady in jeopardy." Often, she doesn't know her peril, but the readers see it unfold. It's very clear, from the beginning, to whom the threat is aimed. Second, there is a clearly defined (though unidentified) villain. Part of the tension lies in seeing the plot progress from the villain's standpoint, as he comes closer to achieving his goal. We don't know who he is, of course, so we're left to guess amongst several possible suspects. But the dance between villain and victim keeps the tension going throughout the book, until we cannot imagine how our heroine will escape.

In this book, it's never clear (until the end) just WHO the "victim" or person in jeopardy is. We can assume, just from the novel structure, that it must be Laurie, who is hosting the Under Suspicion show. But there is no reason to believe Laurie is in jeopardy (other than that she is the central character), and there is no "hidden" villain clearly watching Laurie, stalking Laurie, or otherwise signaling to the reader that Laurie is in peril. Meanwhile, there are a host of other potential victims (and actual victims) in the plot - but never a clear indication that ANY particular person is in danger. I.e., there is simply NO SUSPENSE. None. Nada. People get attacked, some get killed, but at no point are you ever given a chance to really care about these people, so they are virtually throwaway victims with respect to the plot. There's no sense that the killer is "getting ever closer" to his primary target, because we never HAVE a primary target.

When the villain is finally identified (and honestly, you COULD see him a mile away), his decision to kill Laurie (yes, she is finally the would-be victim) is really a last-minute thing. In traditional MHC books, again, the suspense is based on the danger to the protagonist building up THROUGHOUT the book. There's no suspense here because, really, there IS no danger to the protagonist until, literally, in the last 20 pages of the book. There's never ANY indication that the villain has even considered killing Laurie until a final bit of evidence has been unearthed and he suddenly realizes he's in danger. (If you're on the last 20 pages, you'll have figured it out by now anyway...) And at that point, c'mon, we already know this is a SERIES now so do we really think Laurie is going to die?

If this is an indication of how collaborations with Ms. Burke will turn out, I can only hope there are no more planned! If, conversely, this is an indication that, after decades of wonderful writing, MHC is losing her game, then that marks a sad day for fans!