Book Reviews

The Melody Lingers On by Mary Higgins Clark --3 stars

The Melody Lingers On by Mary Higgins Clark

This review has been also posted in:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3637965
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NR1CZIE/

273 Pages
B00NR1CZIE
ISBN-10: 1594139350
ISBN-13: 978-1594139352

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The author:
Mary Higgins Clark is an American author of mystery-suspense novels. She has written numerous books and has won many awards and was chosen as Grand Master for the 2000 Edgar Awards. A Cry in the Night, The Cinderella Murder, Every Breath You Take, All Around the Town, A Stranger Is Watching, We'll Meet Again are among her most loved works.

I read a few other books by this author, but this one felt a bit quieter than the others, as it centers around a financial scandal. Even so, the plot here has some dynamism that involves opposing concepts like innocence and guilt, love and hate, and suspense versus softness that a reader cannot help but enjoy.

When Parker Bennet cruises away in a sailboat, taking with him a five-billion-dollar investment fund and robbing his clients out of their savings, his son Eric tries to prove his family wasn’t part of any crime and claims that he doesn’t know his father’s whereabouts, contrary to popular opinion.

Elaine Marsha Harmon or Lane, a widow who has a young daughter is an assistant in an interior design firm that serves Manhattan’s high society. There is also Glady Harper, Lane’s boss, who was involved with Parker Bennet in her youth. The stories Glady tells Lane confuses Lane a lot for she has become emotionally involved with Eric who she has come to know, after being sent to furnish Parker Bennet’s wife Anne’s condominium when she is about to sell her fancy big house. Anne, like Eric, believes her husband is innocent and will return someday.

Eric connects with Lane’s daughter Katie and is kind to her. When Lane gets to know the family more, she begins to doubt the guilt of Parker, also. Then, the FBI asks for Lane’s assistance, wanting her to wear a microphone, Lane finds herself between a rock and a hard place. As this is the setup of this complicated story, it will be up to the reader to discover its ending.

Most of the characters are developed well except for the FBI agents, although they offer interesting ideas on the crime and its effect on the characters.

The writing is good enough but I have seen better from this author. The book, however, is a page-turner and is engaging in its own way but without the usual excitement-inducing murder-mystery twists that one comes to expect from Mary Higgins Clark.