My Gal Sunday [School & Library Binding]

Mary Higgins Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1997

Former president Henry Parker Britland IV and his beautiful young wife, Sunday, recently elected to Congress, turn sleuth to uncover the truth when Henry's former secretary of state is indicted for the murder of his mistress.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Imagine Nick and Nora Charles with a taste for politics and none for gin, and you'd be pretty close to Mary Higgins Clark's Henry Parker Britland IV and his attractive young wife, Sandra O'Brien Britland, known as Sunday. Henry, possessor of an enormous inherited fortune and known as one of America's sexiest men, has just finished his second term as president of the United States and is happily retired at 44, puttering around his New Jersey country estate. Sunday, who bootstrapped her way up from a modest working-class background, is a junior congresswoman with a reputation for smarts. The two met, romantically enough, on the eve of Henry's leaving office, fell madly in love, and were married six weeks later. In this collection of four pleasantly readable stories, the sleuthing duo catch the murderer of a statesman's flashy amour, endure Sunday's kidnapping and mastermind her rescue, solve the 34-year-old mystery of the disappearance of a foreign prime minister from the Britland family yacht, and reunite a ransomed boy with his parents at Christmas. Of the four, "They All Ran After the President's Wife" may be the best plotted, and has a particularly amusing McGuffin in the character of a caviar-loving terrorist. While the suspense is on the mild side throughout, the romance is lighthearted but sincere, and the occasional flashes of wit are dryly appealing. It's a bonbon, to be enjoyed for its brief sweetness. --Barrie Trinkle --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

An appealing husband-and-wife sleuthing team are the stars of the four stories in Clark's new collection. Her protagonists are Henry Parker Britland IV, the 44-year-old former president of the U.S., and his recent bride, plucky congresswoman Sandra ("Sunday") O'Brien Britland. Debonair, wealthy Henry and smart-as-a-whip Sunday enjoy their estates in New Jersey, Florida, the Bahamas and Provence, and other perks of Henry's patrician background, such as a private jet and an elegant yacht. But they keep getting embroiled in dicey situations. The best entry, "They All Ran After the President's Wife," features two genuinely eccentric and creepy evildoers and a kidnapped Sunday in peril. Although nicely set up and suspenseful, it suffers from a rushed denouement. A pleasant diversion, "Hail, Columbia," takes place aboard the Britlands' yacht, from which the prime minister of Costa Barria had disappeared 32 years earlier after having given the then 12-year-old Henry an envelope, which has also vanished?until clever Sunday finds the missing link. A kidnapper from the wrong side of the tracks who improbably speaks fluent French is the drawback to credibility in "Merry Christmas/Joyeux Noel," and the lead entry, "A Crime of Passion," is a clunky no-brainer. But Clark uses every occasion to celebrate her gorgeous newlyweds' delirious happiness and misses no opportunity to cater to those readers who favor a little romance with their mild suspense. 800,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• School & Library Binding: 206 pages
• Publisher: Turtleback (November 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0613084020
• ISBN-13: 978-0613084024
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,369,850 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

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, May 25, 2000

By 

"bluesvixen123" - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Gal Sunday : Henry and Sunday Stories (Hardcover)

Mary Higgins Clark has created perfect plots and a little addedromance to her short stories. The two main charectors are perfectly created. They show emotions and compassion and brawn and brilliance. They are not too smart or lovey-dovey, but they are not dumb or cold. The stories comply with whay happens in the world today. The author has made a story of the real world.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Watching a wheel go round is more fun that reading this!, November 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: My Gal Sunday (Mass Market Paperback)

Having read a few of Mary Higgins Clark's books I could not believe that this book was written by the same person. I have not been able to finish this book; it's so very very boring! This is a miserable collection of short stories and a complete waste of precious paper! I wish I could send it back for a refund - reason : lack of content, please recycle!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I was not impressed, April 24, 2000

By 

Carrie Trevino (Denver) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Gal Sunday (School & Library Binding)

My gal Sunday was very unimaginative. I kept hoping that the book would get better but it never did. This is the first book by Mary Higgins Clark that I have read, and I was not impressed. The charecters in the book were boring and they really weren't anyone I would want to met because they weren't interesting enough. I would not recommend this book to anyone unless you need a book to help you fall asleep.