Murder For Love

mary higgins clark

Happily married with five young children, Mary Higgins Clark's husband came home from work one day and, having just announced his arrival, had a heart attack and died. His mother, who lived with the family, heard the commotion and ran out of her upstairs bedroom, asking what had happened. Mary said, "It's Warren; he's dead. " Shocked by the news, his mother immediately had a heart attack and died too. It is the sort of incredibly melodramatic tragedy that could never appear in fiction.

The young widow then had to get on with life. Each morning, she rose at 5: 00 a. m., carried her portable typewriter to the kitchen table, and wrote for two hours before getting her children up, dressed, fed, and off to school, after which she went to her full-time job. After work, she made sure the kids were fed, bathed, got their homework done, and off to bed before she collapsed herself. The next morning, more of the same. I confess to being unimpressed when aspiring writers speak of their passion for writing being unfulfilled because they are simply too busy to get words on paper.

As perhaps the bestselling mystery writer in the world, Mary Higgins Clark is most closely associated with suspense fiction in which a woman or child is in peril. In "Definitely, a Crime of Passion, "she has written a somewhat different story, a breezy throwback to the married couple as sleuths. Here, a handsome and much-loved former president who flies his own plane, and his gorgeous and energetic young wife (think James Bond meets Mr. and Mrs. North) appear in the first of what will surely be a series of adventures.

– O. P.