A Cry in the Night [Import] [Paperback]

Mary Higgins Clark (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Fontana Press; New Ed edition (1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006166547
• ISBN-13: 978-0006166542
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (141 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,672,902 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

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Suspenseful even after the fifteenth time I've read it!, July 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Cry In The Night (Mass Market Paperback)

I absolutely love Mary Higgins Clark and I believe that I have read all of her books, but A Cry in the Night really is the shining star of her collection. She takes a very naive woman who is trying hard, as a single mother and working full-time to support her family, and puts her in this very convienent position that she can't say no to. I was amazed that after the first and second times I read it that I wanted to reread it over so many times. Clark is interesting and beautifully creates suspense and a very real apathy toward the character. Just writing this review makes me want to pick up my very worn copy and start this book all over again. I am impressed by all of her books, but the only problem I have is the lack of originality when it comes to the character's plots. They all seem the same to me. You have this attractive, successful woman who has a great job, is single predominately, and comes across a mystery that she somehow has managed to get herself involved in. Every one of her books, with the exception of this one and maybe one or two others, is like this. Nevertheless, I am still a huge fan of her books and would recommend anyone who loves a great mystery to definitely try this book. It is well worth your time.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent novel of suspense, January 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Cry In The Night (Mass Market Paperback)

After finishing the incredibly stale LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART, I was about ready to give up on Mary Higgins Clark. If you're someone who, like me, was beginning to wonder what all the Clark hoopla was about, run out quick and get a copy of A CRY IN THE NIGHT, which can be described as a sort of modern cross between PSYCHO and REBECCA. This is a very well-done book, and it succeeds on many levels.

Jenny MacPartland is a divorced mother of two who is swept off her feet by Erich Krueger, a kind, handsome artist who marries her and takes her back to his sprawling farm in Minnesota. Not long after she arrives, she begins to sense tension in the air. Erich begins to behave strangely. Her ex-husband, Kevin, comes down to visit her, stirring up trouble. The whole place is overshadowed by the strange presence of Caroline, Erich's long-dead mother, to whom Jenny bears a striking resemblance. Soon Jenny begins to have dizzy spells and wonders if she is sleepwalking during the night. What began as a dream for both the protagonist and the reader has transformed into a horrific nightmare.

Clark handles this transformation with considerable deftness, demonstrating her masterful control of pace and characterization. The plot is especially convoluted and intricate; in fact, there are as many surprising twists as there are pages. Unlike LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART and WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?, in which the terror kicks in only in the last few chapters or so, A CRY IN THE NIGHT turns on the suspense less than halfway through the novel and never lets up the pressure. This is an unusually chilling book, but aside from all the suspenseful pleasures of the story, it is also a very sad and emotionally involving drama. There is no pat resolution or happy ending here, but the denouement, if bittersweet, is wholly satisfying. This reader is, I'm happy to report, an officially converted Clark fan.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Seriously Spooky!, February 16, 2006

By 

Coppertop (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Cry In The Night (Mass Market Paperback)

MHC writes mostly suspense that really only get seriously frightening at the end. Not this one - its terrifying. This woman marries a man who turns out to be a maniac. The story of her and her two children is very scary. While not a book I would reread (too scary), it is definitely one to remember.