Monday, August 10, 2009

Monday Bookworms: Just Take My Heart

Just Take My Heart, Mary Higgins Clark
322 pages, @ 2009

I have been an avid Mary Higgins Clark fan since I was 13 and on vacation with my parents in Cape Cod. One rainy day I declared I was bored and my mother gave me While My Pretty One Sleeps and I was hooked.

I went on to read every book she'd ever written. My mother obviously is also a huge MHC fan and so every year for Mother's Day part of her gift is that I get her the latest MHC book. Luckily, once she's finished she always passes them on to me!

I realized not too long ago that I had never gotten this year's book, Just Take My Heart, so when we stopped by my parents this weekend to drop off the car I picked it up and promptly started it on the train ride back to NYC.

Just Take My Heart centers around the Bergen County assistant prosecuter, Emily Wallace, who is assigned her biggest case yet, the murder of actress Natalie Raines. The obvious suspect in this murder is Natalie's soon to be ex-husband Gregg Aldrich. Emily's, put-away witness, is an ex-con Jimmy Easton, who claims that Aldrich hired him to murder his wife. While all of this is going on, Emily, unbeknownst to her, has a larger problem on her hands, that of her creepy neighbor, Zach Lanning. Will she realize in time that he isn't who he says he is?

Of course in typical MHC fashion this book flew, I finished it in about two days! I did however, disappointingly, figure out "who done it" about half way through the book. I wouldn't say that MHC mysteries are usually the most difficult to figure out, but she usually narrows it down to two men, one who will end up wooing the main female character, and one who is the murderer and therefore trying to stop the main female character from putting all the pieces together...who can she trust?

In this book however, MHC took the approach of introducing a totally different storyline that had nothing to do with the main part of the mystery. This story line instead of adding to the mystery was just a distraction from the main plot. Therefore, I found it easier to figure out the mystery.

While I didn't think this was MHC's best effort, I did thoroughly enjoy it!

3 stars

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What is your favorite Mary Higgins Clark book? Mine is definitely Stillwatch!

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