All Through the Night [Paperback]

Mary Higgins-Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1999

Willy has been looking forward to playing Santa at the after-school centre set up to care for children of working parents. But suddenly a shadow falls upon the Christmas cheer. The centre is threatened with closure, a valuable chalice from the local church is stolen, and a young girl disappears.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Fans of Mary Higgins Clark and cozy mysteries will relish this Christmas confection. Unlike her previous holiday novel, Silent Night, All Through the Night is virtually free of life-and-death crime. Rather, it is a Dickensian tale of good deeds rewarded and crimes punished.

The wintry story begins on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with 18-year-old Sondra Lewis, an aspiring violinist, tearfully leaving her baby on the steps of St. Clement's Church. Unbeknownst to her, Lenny Centino is robbing that same church on the same night, with his attention particularly on the Church's diamond inlaid chalice. He finds a buggy outside the church and uses it for cover as he flees. Only later does he realize that his take for the night includes the infant Stellina (Italian for star). The narrative then abruptly moves ahead seven years. Clark's lottery-winning protagonists, Alvirah and her husband Willy (introduced in Weep No More, My Lady) return for some amateur sleuthing. Sister Cordelia's thrift shop doubles as an after-school recreation place for neighborhood children (including a shy little girl named Star), but the building has been condemned. Bessie Maher had vowed she was leaving the house to the nun and her children. Now that she is gone, the will indicates that the tenants of the house, Vic and Linda Baker, are the true heirs. As December rushes on towards Christmas, Alvirah struggles to put things right before the children are left in the cold.

Like the best holiday stories, All Through the Night steers toward sentimentality, but it veers back on course with narrative wit and Alvirah's charm. Clark's prose is lean and her plotting is brisk. This is a mystery that would be a pleasure to share aloud with a family gathered at the fireplace for some holiday cheer. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Clark's popular lottery winners, amateur sleuth Alvirah and her husband, Willy, are getting ready for Christmas. When the local after-school center is threatened and a friend's will is contested, Alvirah goes on the job. Before long, she also finds herself trying to locate a child abandoned seven years earlier by a young mother and trying to solve the mystery of a stolen chalice. Normally known for her suspenseful stories, Clark (You Belong to Me, Audio Reviews, LJ 6/1/98) doesn't quite deliver. The listener isn't all that surprised at any of the revelations at the end of the program. The reading, by the author's daughter, best-selling writer and actor Carol Higgins Clark, is lively. However, numerous characters and little voice differentiation make the narrative difficult to follow. The author is always popular, but this is not an essential purchase. Recommended for larger collections.AAdrienne Furness, Lockport P.L., NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671022849
• ISBN-13: 978-0671022846
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,024,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

If I were to define myself in one sentence, I would say, "I'm a nice Irish Catholic girl from the Bronx."

I was a Christmas Eve baby all those years ago, the second of the three children of Nora and Luke Higgins. Mother was pushing forty when they married and my father was forty-two. My older brother was named Joseph. Nineteen months later I, Mary, was born. Three and a half years later, my little brother, John, came along.

We lived in a very nice section of the Bronx on a street off Pelham Parkway. I loved our house. I still love it. After my father died, when I was eleven, my mother had to sell it.

I went to Saint Francis Xavier Grammar School. Two years ago I went back and was Principal for a Day. Escorted by two of the tiniest children, I was led into the auditorium while the whole student body sang "Hello Mary. You're back where you belong." I still tear up thinking about it.

I was awarded a scholarship to Villa Maria Academy which is in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx, otherwise I couldn't have afforded to set foot in it.

I went to Woods Secretarial School and at eighteen had my first full-time job as Secretary to the creative director of Remington Rand's in-house advertising agency. If I were making that choice now I would have gone to college even though God knows we needed the income. On the other hand the three years I spent in Remington Rand was a tutorial in advertising which served me well when I was widowed with five small children. Another plus was that I left Remington to be a flight stewardess with Pan American Airways and when my contemporaries were seniors in college, I was flying to Europe, Africa and Asia.

Warren Clark and I were married on December 26, 1949 and had five children in the next eight years; Marilyn, Warren, David, Carol and Patricia. Warren died of a heart attack in 1964. The highest compliment I can pay my kids are that they are like him.

I sold my first short story when I was twenty-eight. It was alled 'Stowaway'. It had been rejected forty times before a magazine in Chicago bought it for one hundred dollars.

My first book was about George Washington. It was published in 1969 and disappeared without a trace. Three years ago Simon and Schuster co-published it with the Mount Vernon Historical Society and retitled 'Mount Vernon Love Story', it became a bestseller.

My first suspense novel 'Where Are the Children' was bought in 1974 for three thousand dollars by Simon and Schuster. Thirty-three books later, I'm still with S&S.

Time to wind up - at least for the present. As soon as I sold 'Children' I enrolled in Fordham College. Went there for five years at night and earned a B.A. in Philosophy. Summa cum laude, if you please.

I never thought I'd marry again but ten years ago I threw a cocktail party on St. Patrick's day. My daughter, Pat, urged me to invite John Conheeney. Her opening words about him were, "Have I got a hunk for you!" He came to the party and we were married eight months later.

I'm Honorary Chairman of FraXa Research. My grandson, David, has the Fragile X syndrome, which is the second leading cause of retardation after Downs Syndrome. Basically the brain of the people who have it can't send out the proper signals because there's a kind of short circuit in the synapses that carry the signals. We raise money for research with the goal of finding a medication that will work around that short circuit. I go all over the country to the fund-raisers as new chapters of FraXa are opened.

I'm always asked to name my favorite book. They're ALL my favorites. If there is one book that is very special to me, it is my memoir 'Kitchen Privileges' because writing it made me relive my early life including those first struggles to become a writer. I think 'Kitchen Privileges' is both tender and funny and it's me.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A nice Christmas story, November 30, 1999

By 

Beatrice (Berlin, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Through the Night (Holiday Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

"All through the Night" is a nice Christmas story with a happy ending. It is easy to read and entertaining. If you like Alvirah and Willy, go for it. If you prefer murder and breathtaking suspense, read one of Mary Higgins Clark's earlier novels.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Feel Good Story, November 29, 1999

By 

Traci Bell - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Through the Night (Holiday Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

If you are looking for guts, gore and grit, look elsewhere. This is a mystery without a dead body. It pulls at the heart strings, and brings back my favourite Clark characters, Willy and Alvirah, who I can't get enough of. This is one of the fastest reads I have experienced, but it was heart-warming and perfect for the holiday season

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Christmas Mystery, November 26, 2001

By 

M. A. Ramos (Florida USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: All Through The Night : A Suspense Story (Hardcover)

This is a fantastic read. Short, but one of her best. Two sub-plots that do not hinder the other, tied together by a little girl named Star. The whole setting is easy to believe, so you can easily let yourself flow with the story. And it does flow; you will not wish to put it down. There are a couple things that are just too convient. But I guess you would need a much longer book to fit everything in. A good read for Christmas.