Mary Higgins Clark Essay, Research Paper

1 Mary Higgins Clark has written many novels and short narratives over the old ages. She has concentrated most of her authorship on enigmas and nobbling. I will turn out that Mary Higgins Clark begins and ends her novels with an component of suspense. The two novels I have chosen to cover throughout my research paper are Silent Night and The Anastasia Syndrome. The two short narratives I have besides covered are The Man Next Door and The Lost Angel.Silent NightSilent Night is a good written novel by Mary Higgins Clark. She starts this book by presenting the of import characters of the novel. She so lays out a map for you to follow as she takes you on a wild and cliff-hanging drive. In the instance of Silent Night she truly does take you on a wild drive when a small male child is kidnapped as he tries to acquire his female parent s billfold, which held the St. Christopher decoration for his ill male parent. The chief ground he goes after the billfold is because he wanted to give his sick male parent the St. Christopher decoration which saved his gramps in a war and was supposed to convey his male parent good fortune to acquire good. The first cliff-hanging inquiry the book begins with is happening out how the characters will suit into the secret plan. The first existent anxiousness of the novel begins early when Brian sees the billfold autumn and the individual choice it up. & # 8220 ; As he watched, he saw the 2 billfold autumn to the land. He turned back to recover it, but before he could pick it up, a manus reached down and grabbed it. & # 8221 ; 1 This scene is what the remainder of the novel is based on, Brian recovering the billfold or really the St. Christopher decoration that is in it, and the female parent happening her boy with the aid of the constabulary. Marry Higgins Clark likes to take her readers into interesting state of affairss and so stop the chapter with a drop hanger, doing her readers want to go on on and happen out more. She begins the terminal of the novel by utilizing boding for illustration she ends chapter 19 with the kidnapper/escaped bull slayer by stating & # 8220 ; Why did I think I needed him [ Brian ] ? He ached for the minute when he could be rid of the child and be safe. & # 8221 ; 2 This evidently means the kidnaper will kill the child at the following opportunity he can acquire. Mary Higgins Clark so finds ways to give the constabulary the right leads, and do the characters say the right things with out doing the novel excessively bogus. She leads the reader through the distorted narratives, doing the reader want to cognize more and read on. As a reader, one can associate to her Hagiographas in mundane life ; everyday on the intelligence you hear of person being kidnapped or killed. She includes mundane life into her novels. When asked what sort of characters Mary Higgins Clark liked to compose about, she replied, & # 8220 ; Nice people whose lives are invaded by immorality. They are people with whom we can identify-leading ordinary lives and traveling about their concern. My heroines are strong 3 adult females who take a major function in work outing their ain jobs. A adult male may come in to assist at the terminal, but the adult female fundamentally copes with the endangering state of affairs herself. & # 8221 ; 3The Anastasia Syndrome The Anastasia Syndrome is another good written, cliff-hanging book written by Mary Higgins Clark. She does non get down the book as usual by presenting all the characters who will take portion, but alternatively introduces them as the exciting secret plan unfolds. The first suspense the reader comes across in this book, comes subsequently than most of her novels written. It all starts when Judith, the chief character of the book, has an passing memory of a small kid running and edifices detonating. Immediately Judith goes to the head-shrinker against the will of her fellow, the soon-to-be following Prime Minister of England. While under hypnosis, she unleashes a 2nd spirit in her. Mary Higgins Clark uses the ignorance of the reader s cognition in the Anastasia Syndrome. By non uncovering excessively much about it at the beginning of the novel, she knows how to put on the wackiness of the secret plan. The existent Anastasia Syndrome is an existent historical incident, when Anna Anderson attempted to convert the universe that she was Anastasia, the Czar Nicholas II s girl. Mary Higgins Clark uses this and suggests 4 through her chief character that Anna Anderson was possessed by Anastasia s spirit. As the novel progresses there are three bombs set off by the spirit of & # 8220 ; split personality & # 8221 ; inside Judith s organic structure. She has Scotland Yard in shambles seeking to calculate out if Judith or a expression likewise set the bombardments in the really public topographic points of King Charles I. The decision to the book is really dramatic, utilizing many different facets of the secret plan. Even when you think the stoping of the book will be a happy, BOOM ( literally ) ! The most cliff-hanging minute at the terminal of the novel was when Judith faces her impostor when she is deep in hypnosis. & # 8220 ; She s naming for me. I won t bend! I won T! & # 8221 ; 4 The suspense moves on. & # 8220 ; Judith! , expression. Stephen is here. They re traveling to put to death Stephen. & # 8221 ; Judith whirled about and looked into the demanding, obliging regard of Lady Margaret Carew. She began to shout, a frenetic, terrified wail. & # 8221 ; 5 This is the first novel of Mary Higgins Clark I have read that does non stop with a happy stoping. This shows how Mary Higgins Clark can get down and stop her books with great suspense, and besides throw in a small distorted secret plan mediate! Besides, in non stoping this novel with precisely a & # 8220 ; happy stoping & # 8221 ; , it shows readers that the writer can be diverse in her books and non hold it be the same old narrative with a happy stoping every clip. I believe that every one time in a piece you need a good novel with a sad stoping. Take the films for illustration, there are many 5 & # 8220 ; Blockbusters & # 8221 ; that have happy terminations. Very few do non hold happy terminations. Titanic, for illustration did non hold a really happy stoping. Yes, we knew the ship was traveling to drop, but we did non precisely know if Jack Daweson was traveling to decease instantly after the ship went down or 50 old ages subsequently. By non holding a fairy narrative stoping to the & # 8220 ; love narrative & # 8221 ; , and with Titanic making so good in the box office, it put Titanic in a different category, merely like novels which have sad endings.The Man Next Door The Man Next Door is a good written short narrative by Marry Higgins Clark. Again she begins this short narrative by presenting all the characters foremost. The narrative begins with a adult male named August Mensch, a nut instance the bulls have been after for old ages for his connexion with losing adult females. He lives following to Bree Matthews, a busy, working adult female. Mary Higgins Clark does non blow her clip in acquiring to the secret plan of the short narrative. She begins the suspense with Bree kicking to August that her roof leak is his mistake. He finds an involvement in Bree and so plans an onslaught. Mary Higgins Clark opens the short narratives with creepy and cliff-hanging hints and sentences. & # 8220 ; He had known for hebdomads that it was clip to ask for another invitee to the secret topographic point, the infinite he had fashioned out of the public-service corporation room 6 in the cellar. It had been six months since Tiffany, the last 1. She had lasted 20 yearss, longer than most of the others. & # 8221 ; 6 Mary Higgins Clark knows how to acquire the readers into her short narratives and with an opening line like this she can catch many readers attending. Mary Higgins Clark is cagey when composing her characters are kidnapped or cryptically disappear. & # 8220 ; He would take adequate clinker blocks to derive entry int

o her cellar and convey her in through the opening.”7 By depicting this in her short narrative, she does non hold to go forth unreciprocated inquiries. She describes to the readers what is traveling on in her characters caputs. She manipulates the readers into going portion of the short narrative as if one were the research worker or the individual desiring to halt the force in the short narrative. Mary Higgins Clark uses the FBI, Bree s cleaning lady, and Bree s fellow to assist work out the enigma as to where Bree has gone. The suspense at the terminal of the short narrative comes rapidly as they start bring outing hints and come near to happening her, you merely wear T cognize where Mary Higgins Clark will convey the reader following. The reader is still non certain if Bree will last, even though they are so near to happening her. Finally, one time the characters have all of the hints together and are slaming down the door to acquire into August s topographic point, one merely doesn t cognize if he will kill her before Bree s fellow, Kevin Carter, will deliver her. “As Mensch

7 tightened his custodies on Bree s cervix, he all of a sudden felt his caput yanked back, and a violent clout to chew the fat caused his articulatio genuss to buckle. & # 8221 ; 8 Kevin Carter had merely knocked August Mensch out and put him in a headlock. The FBI was there and ready to take him off. Like most of Mary Higgins Clark s novel and short narratives, this ends with a happy ending.The Lost Angel The Lost Angel is yet once more another brightly written book by Mary Higgins Clark. Again, the chief secret plan is about snatch, yet incredibly it grabs the reader s attending instantly. For the 2nd clip, she has started off without presenting all of the characters, but adding them in as the secret plan unfolds. It is the manner Mary Higgins Clark introduces the secret plan which makes it cliff-hanging. A kid who is taken from her female parent by her wanted male parent, a runaway of the FBI, disappears into New York City. As the reader is introduced into the secret plan one, automatically feels sorry for the female parent of the lost kid. & # 8220 ; It had been a long dark. Most of it had been spent awake, seeking to get the better of the fright that was her changeless comrade. Suppose she ne’er found Jamie? & # 8221 ; 9 Amazingly, when Susan, the female parent, was at work, a colleague was reading a magazine with angels on the forepart screen ; Susan grabbed the magazine and covered one of the 8 small misss caputs with brown pen. This made the girl expression precisely like her losing girl. Stupidly plenty, Tina, the male parent s girlfriend, brought Jamie to a mold bureau while Jeff was out of the state on concern. This led to the capturing of Jeff and Tina. This still left you with happening Jamie. At the age of four Tina left her in the coach terminus and took off to Boston. The even greater suspense of the narrative is merely as the female parent was about to happen her, Jamie was being picked up by a child raper. & # 8220 ; Sam, do you see whose on that line? It s that stinking child molester who didn T show up for test. Come on! & # 8221 ; 10 The constabulary spotted the raper, and Susan saw Jamie praying into the window. & # 8220 ; Dazedly, Susan walked toward Jamie. Her hungry weaponries stretched out, she bent over and listened as Jamie continued to implore, & # 8220 ; Please, delight Mommy come now. & # 8221 ; 11 It s great that three of the four narratives had happy terminations, but you ever need those sad terminations to equilibrate everything out. Connecting the Novels and Short Stories All of the Mary Higgins Clark novels and short narratives that I have read have some connexions. They have either been connected by suspense, adult female power, snatch, or writhing attractive secret plans. 9 Kidnaping seems to be a favourite of Mary Higgins Clark, three of the four books I read were about snatch and in all of the books they turned out to be happy terminations. When Mary Higgins Clark was asked & # 8220 ; What made you turn to the field of enigma and suspense? & # 8221 ; she replied, & # 8220 ; I decided to compose a book that would, hopefully, outsell Aspire to Heavens. One of the best hints about what to compose is what one likes to read. I decided to see if I could compose a suspense novel. I was like a prospector faltering on a vena of gold. I wrote Where Are the Children? & # 8211 ; my first best seller and a turning point in my life and career. & # 8221 ; 12 All the books that I read had a character who was distressed, or needed aid. They all were connected by a calamity in their lives, non merely the chief character but besides the back uping characters, such as the female parent in Silent Night and the female parent in The Lost Angel. In every book there is a beginning of immorality, this immorality is shown in many ways. In the Anastasia Syndrome it was the spirit of Margaret Carew who controlled Judith, or the convicted bull slayer in Silent Night, The male parent in The Lost Angel, and in The Man Next Door it was the following door neighbour August Mensch. Evil is in mundane life, and I believe that Mary Higgins Clark s novels and short narratives are so successful because they relate so closely to existent life state of affairss. The Anastasia Syndrome was a different type of novel, it was non her typical snatch novel, but in a manner it was nobbling. When the spirit tries to catch Judith, Judith s 10 spirit has to contend back so Margaret Carew s spirit would non take over her organic structure. The large difference in this & # 8220 ; nobbling & # 8221 ; is that she has to travel through this alone and merely her subconscious knows about it at first. These are the ways that the Mary Higgins Clark books that I have read tie into one another. It seems as though Mary Higgins Clark knows how to bind her novels together and maintain the readers interested in really exciting secret plans that she introduces in her antic short narratives and novels.About the Writer: Mary Higgins Clark Mary Higgins Clark is a great novel and short narrative writer. She started her celebrity by selling most of her narratives to magazines. Mary Higgins Clark was born and raised in New York. At the age of 10 her male parent died, she found this out by walking place from church one Sunday and seeing a immense crowd around her place. Her female parent raised her and her two brothers, she was a individual ma. Mary Higgins Clark was merrily married in 1949, and had five kids, they were left fatherless after the decease of her hubby due to a bosom onslaught in 1964. She besides raised her kids, runing in age from five to thirteen as a individual ma. She started composing shortly after her hubby died. She sold her Hagiographas to wireless shows, so magazines, and eventually published her first book called Aspire to the Heavens. She now has gone on and written many New York Times 11 Bestsellers, and has established her ego as a great author. As I was reading a particular subdivision in the dorsum of Silent Night there is one quotation mark that caught my oculus. When Mary Higgins Clark was asked & # 8220 ; Could you of all time live a life of leisure? & # 8221 ; she replied, & # 8220 ; No-never. Person one time said, If you want to be happy for a twelvemonth, win the lottery ; if you want to be happy for a life-time, love what you do. That s the manner it is for me-I love to whirl yarns. & # 8221 ; 13 I have truly enjoyed reading Mary Higgins Clark s books. They have been truly interesting and for the 2nd or 3rd clip in my life these books really had me desiring to read them, I merely couldn t set them down. I besides admire the background and composing that Mary Higgins Clark has done. She is a really powerful writer and truly is the & # 8220 ; Queen of Suspense & # 8221 ; . I am looking forward to reading more of her books on my ain.