According to the trial testimony of her housekeeper, Molly had left home in a rage against her husband to go up to their house on Cape Cod. The morning after Molly's return, the housekeeper found Gary dead in his study and Molly upstairs in bed covered with blood. Nobody believes Molly's claim to have no memory of the events of the night of the crime--not her parents, not her friends, not even her own lawyer--and evidence against her is overwhelming. To escape an inevitable conviction she accepts a plea bargain, and subsequently her lawyer wins her early parole.

A few years later, on Molly's release from prison, she reasserts her innocence in front of TV cameras and reporters gathered at the prison gate. Among them is an old acquaintance and schoolmate, Fran Simmons, currently working as an investigative reporter for the True Crime television series.

Determined to prove her innocence. Molly convinces Fran to research and present a program on Gary's death. Despite her skepticism, Fran agrees to go ahead. In doing so, she has a second agenda--to learn the truth about her own father's suicide some fourteen years earlier, on the very night she graduated from Greenwich's Cranden Academy, which both she and Molly attended. Struggling to keep up a lifestyle he couldn't afford, apparently Fran's father killed himself because he was about to be exposed as an embezzler, although no trace was ever found of how he spent the missing money.

Fran, intent on assuaging Molly's doubts about her husband's death and her own gnawing questions about her father's suicide, soon finds herself enmeshed in a tangled web of intrigue and menace--more deaths and more unanswered questions about Gary Lasch's murder.

As her investigation proceeds into the private life of the dead physician, her father's alleged embezzlement, and the affairs of Remington Health Management, there are those who know they must make a choice: face ruin or eliminate Fran Simmons.

The quarrel was precipitated by Nell's decision to try to win the congressional seat long held by her grandfather Cornelius MacDermott. Orphaned at age ten, she had been raised by "Mac," as she called him, and was always at his side on Capitol Hill. Politics was in her blood, and Adam had known her ambitions when they married. Suddenly, however, he became opposed to her plan to run for Congress.

Nell, like her great-aunt Gert, possesses psychic gifts, which her grandfather scoffingly dismisses as "flights of fantasy." As a child she had been aware of the deaths of both her parents and grandmother at the exact moment they died. She knew because at that very moment she sensed their presence near her. Even though Nell has the rare gift of extrasensory perception, she is much too levelheaded to accept most of the claims made by many so-called psychics and is skeptical about Aunt Gert's fascination with mediums. After Adam's death, however, Gert begs Nell to see a medium, Bonnie Wilson, who has contacted her, claiming she is in touch with Adam. Still regretting her last angry words to Adam, Nell agrees, hoping that she will be able to reach him through the medium and part from him in peace.

As the investigation into the boat's explosion proceeds, Nell is shocked by the official confirmation that it was not an accident but the result of foul play. Adam, an architect, had been involved in a major construction project on land he had recently purchased and which had since had a spectacular rise in value.

Was Adam the target of the explosion? Or was it Winifred Johnson, his self-effacing, fifty-two-year-old assistant, who knew too much about bribery in the construction business and who was openly in love with him? Or was it Sam Krause, a builder with a questionable reputation who was involved in the new project? Or Jimmy Ryan, the debt-ridden construction foreman whose wife, after his death, discovers money hidden in their home? Or was it Peter Lang, the wealthy man-about-town real-estate entrepreneur, whose minor traffic accident caused him to miss the fatal meeting on the boat?

As Nell searches for the truth about Adam's death, she carries out instructions from Adam transmitted through the medium. What she does not know is that she is being closely watched, and the nearer she comes to learning what actually happened on the boat that night, the nearer she is to becoming the next victim of a ruthless killer.

Now, with All Through the Night, she once again celebrates the Christmas season with a tale of suspense that will keep readers turning the pages-all through the night.

At the center of the novel are two of Mary Higgins Clark's most beloved characters, Alvirah, the lottery winner turned amateur sleuth, and her husband, Willy, both of them caught up in a Christmas mystery that calls on all of Alvirah's deductive powers, as well as Willy's world-class common sense.

The story begins when a young unmarried woman leaves her newborn child on the rectory doorstop at a church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. At the same moment, inside the church, a young man is stealing a treasured artifact, a chalice adorned with a single star-shaped diamond. Both the infant and the chalice disappear.

Seven years later, a few weeks before Christmas, Alvirah and Willy are busy helping Willy's sister Cordelia, a nun who runs a thrift shop that doubles as an after-school shelter for neighborhood kids, prepare for the upcoming Christmas pageant. The future of the shelter is threatened, however, when the city condemns the building for that use, and it is further jeopardized when a nearby brownstone to which the shelter was to be moved turns out to have been willed to a young couple who were tenants in the building. Alvirah refuses to believe that the will is genuine and sets out to prove that the couple are con artists. Soon she is involved in the mystery of the chalice and the child.

Following the acrimonious breakup of her marriage and the searing experience of being pursued by an obsessed stalker, criminal defense attorney Emily Graham accepts an offer to leave Alvany and work in a major law firm in Manhattan. Feeling a need for roots, she buys her ancestral home, a restored Victorian house in the historic New Jersey seaside resort town of Spring Lake. Her family had sold the house in 1892, after one of Emily's forebears, Madeline Shapley, then still a young woman disappeared.

Now, more than a century later, as the house is being renovated and the backyard excavated for a pool, the skeleton of a young woman is found. She is identified as Martha Lawrence, who had disappeared from Spring Lake over four years ago. Within her skeletal hand is the finger bone of another woman with a ring still on it - a Shapley family heirloom.

In seeking to find the link between her family's past and the recent murder, Emily becomes a threat to a devious and seductive killer, who has chosen her as the next victim.

It was Ellie who had led her parents to a hideout in which Andrea's body was found -- a secret hideaway in which she met her friends. And it was Ellie who was blamed by her parents for her sister's death for not telling them about this place the night Andrea was missing. It was also Ellie's testimony that led to the conviction of the man she was firmly convinced was the killer. Steadfastly denying his guilt, he spent the next twenty-two years in prison.

When he comes up for parole, Ellie, now an investigative reporter for an Atlanta newspaper, protests his release. Nonetheless, the convicted killer is set free and returns to Oldham. Determined to thwart his attempts to whitewash his reputation, Ellie also returns to Oldham, intent on creating a Website and writing a book that will conclusively prove his guilt. As she delves deeper into her research, however, she uncovers horrifying and heretofore unknown facts that shed new light on her sister's murder. With each discovery, she comes closer to a confrontation with a desperate killer.

Gripping and relentlessly compelling, Daddy's Little Girl, a portrayal of a family shattered by crime, reflects Mary Higgins Clark's uncanny insight into the twisted mind of a killer and is further evidence of why she is America's favorite author of suspense.

Along with all Americans, those who lived in New York City's borough of the Bronx suffered during the Depression. So it followed that when Mary's father died, her mother, deciding to open the family home to boarders, placed a discreet sign next to the front door that read, FURNISHED ROOMS. KITCHEN PRIVILEGES. Very shortly the first in a succession of tenants arrived: a couple dodging bankruptcy who moved in with their wild-eyed boxer; a teacher who wept endlessly over her lost love; a deadbeat who tripped over a lamp while trying to sneak out in the middle of the night...

The family's struggle to make ends meet; her days as a scholarship student in an exclusive girls' academy; her after-school employment as a hotel switchboard operator (happily listening in on the guests' conversations); the death of her beloved older brother in World War II; her brief career as a flight attendant for Pan Am (a job taken after a friend who flew with the airline said ever so casually, "God, it was beastly hot in Calcutta"); her marriage to Warren Clark, on whom she'd had a crush for many years; sitting at the kitchen table, writing stories, and finally selling the first one for one hundred dollars (after six years and some forty rejections!) -- all these experiences figure into Kitchen Privileges, as does her husband's untimely death, which left her a widowed mother of five young children.

Determined to care for her family and to make a career for herself, she went to work writing scripts for a radio show, but in her spare time she began writing novels. Her first, a biographical novel about the life of George Washington titled Aspire to the Heavens, found a publisher but disappeared without a trace when the publisher folded. (Recently it was rediscovered by a descendant of the Washington family and was reissued under the title Mount Vernon Love Story.) The experience, however, gave her the background and the preparation for writing Where Are the Children? which went on to become an international bestseller. That novel launched her career and was the first of twenty-seven (and still counting!) bestselling books of suspense.

As Mary Higgins Clark has said when asked if she might consider giving up writing for a life of leisure, "Never! To be happy for a year, win the lottery. To be happy for life, love what you do."

In Kitchen Privileges, she reflects on the joy that her life as a writer has brought her, and shares with readers the love that she has found.

Three days before Christmas, Regan Reilly, the dynamic young sleuth featured in the novels of Carol Higgins Clark, meets Alvirah Meehan, the famous lottery winner and amateur detective who has appeared in several previous books by Mary Higgins Clark, when they both arrive at a New Jersey dentist's office. Alvirah is to accompany her husband home after a particularly grueling session, while Regan is there in hopes of connecting with her busy father, who is scheduled for a routine visit.

Once it becomes apparent that Luke Reilly is not going to keep his appointment, Alvirah offers the deeply troubled Regan a lift home. When a call comes through on Regan's cell phone, telling her that her father and his driver, Rosita Gonzalez, are being held for $1,000,000 ransom, Alvirah insists that Regan allow her to lend a hand in trying to gain their release, for while Regan may be a licensed private detective, based in Los Angeles, Alvirah has many valuable contacts among the ranks of New York's law enforcement community.

Further complicating the situation is the fact that Regan's mother, the popular and very successful mystery writer Nora Regan Reilly, was hospitalized only the day before with a badly broken leg, and Regan must comfort her while trying to meet the harsh demands of her father's kidnappers--and their tough deadline.

With Alvirah's help, Jack Reilly, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, is called back from his Christmas holiday to lead the investigation, which becomes more and more tricky as the kidnappers, two men who are not just rank amateurs but also laughably inept--and, therefore, all the more dangerous and unpredictable--make known their demands.

Meanwhile, Luke and Rosita, held captive in a decrepit houseboat moored in the Hudson River, become increasingly concerned not only for their welfare, but for that of their loved ones as well. Luke's wife is in the hospital, and Rosita's two small boys are with a young, unreliable babysitter, while a winter storm gathers force, further endangering them and complicating events.

In Deck the Halls, a story filled with twists and turns, intrigue and danger, as well as a hearty dose of holiday cheer, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark have created a breathless and at the same time remarkably heartwarming story of suspense--a Christmas classic for many holiday seasons to come.

Mary Higgins Clark's interest in George Washington was first sparked by a radio series she was writing in the 1960s, called "Portrait of a Patriot," vignettes of American presidents.

Always a lover of history, she wrote this biographical novel--her first book--and titled it Aspire to the Heavens, which was the family motto of George Washington's mother. With all events, dates, scenes and characters based on historical research, the book was published in 1969.

Its recent discovery by a Washington family descendent led to its reissue under its new title, Mount Vernon Love Story.

In researching George Washington's life, Mary Higgins Clark was surprised to find the engaging man behind the pious legend. He was a giant of a man in every way, starting with his physical height. In an era when men averaged five foot seven inches, he towered over everyone at six foot three. He was the best dancer in the colony of Virginia. He was also a master horseman, which was why the Indians gave him their highest compliment: "He rides his horse like an Indian."

She dispels the widespread belief that although George Washington married an older woman, a widow, his true love was Sally Carey Fairfax, his best friend's wife. Martha Dandridge Custis was older, but only by three months -- she was twenty-seven to his twenty-six when they met. Mary Higgins Clark describes their relationship from their first meeting, their closeness and his tenderness toward her two children. Martha shared his life in every way, crossing the British lines to join him in Boston and enduring with him the bitter hardship of the winter in Valley Forge. As Lady Bird Johnson was never called Claudia, Martha Washington was never known as Martha. Her family and friends called her Patsy. George always called her "my dearest Patsy" and wore a locket with her picture around his neck.

In Mount Vernon Love Story, Mary Higgins Clark tells the story of a rare marriage and brings to life the human side of the man who became the "father of our country."

Meet Sterling Brooks. His was not an exemplary life--he was too self-absorbed to ever really think about anyone else or make a commitment to the woman he loved. On the other hand, he had endearing qualities. His actual misdeeds were few--his were sins of omission, not commission.

It is a few days before Christmas. For forty-six years Sterling has lingered in the celestial waiting room outside the heavenly gates, awaiting summons by the Heavenly Council. Will he be deemed fit for entrance into heaven? At last the day comes and the council settles on a test for Sterling--he will be sent back to earth and given an opportunity to prove his worthiness by helping someone else.

Sterling Brooks finds himself in Manhattan, at the skating rink in Rockefeller Center. Among the skaters is a heartbroken seven-year-old named Marissa, and as Sterling soon realizes, it is she he has been sent to help. Marissa's sadness comes from her separation from the father she adores, a talented young singer, and her sparkling grandmother, owner of a popular restaurant. Both have been forced into the Witness Protection Program because two mobsters, the Badgett brothers, have put a price on their heads to prevent their testifying against them in an arson case.