Nobody Knows [Hardcover]

Mary Jane Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 14, 2002

Cassie Sheridan has all a television news reporter could want: an important beat in Washington D.C., a skyrocketing career, and a talent that everyone acknowledges. But then, she makes a critical mistake. Suddenly, her career is in shambles, her credibility is questioned, and her teenaged daughter makes her realize just how much time she hasn't spent with her. The repercussions of ambitious reporting have now derailed the career of KEY News justice correspondent Cassie Sheridan.

Cassie is transferred to Miami, to wait out the end of her contract-separated from her family, her friends, and the familiarity of Washington. But in an unsuspecting south Florida town, a killer is watching...and waiting.

While covering a hurricane that's moving up Florida's west coast, Cassie meets 11-year-old Vincent, who has just made a grisly discovery on the beach. In one week, Cassie traces the connection between Vincent's newfound "treasure" and a secret operation in the dark shadows of sunny Sarasota-a story that has national significance and maybe, just maybe, will win back her reputation. But nobody knows how fierce the coming storm will be. Nobody knows how far a psychopath will go in pursuit of twisted pleasure. Nobody knows if a young woman's murderer will stop at nothing to keep the crimes a secret. And nobody knows if Cassie will get out alive. . . .

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Network correspondent Cassie Sheridan, a rising star at KEY's Washington bureau, is exiled to the Miami office after her ambitions overpower her common sense and she identifies a victim of the Clown Rapist as the daughter of the head of the FBI. Not only is her career on the skids, but her private life's also a mess, and meanwhile, there's nothing more newsworthy happening than a hurricane warning on Florida's west coast. Then an 11-year-old boy with a metal detector discovers the remains of a dead porn star on a Siesta Key beach. She's wearing a ruby ring that's too tempting a treasure to turn over to the police, but what young Vincent Bayler doesn't know is that it's also an item that at least one upstanding local citizen would do anything to keep from being traced back to him--including kidnapping Vincent's seriously ill brother to convince him to return the ring, and getting Cassie off his trail--permanently. This is a well-crafted but predictable thriller by Clark, whose fictional network (and its anything-for-a-story reporters) couldn't possibly bear more than a fleeting and coincidental resemblance to CBS, where she's been a writer and producer for many years--or could it? --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

CBS News writer and producer Clark (Close to You) returns with a fast-paced but superficial page-turner featuring a down-on-her-luck newswoman and a precocious young boy. Cassie Sheridan's career is flourishing until she reveals on national TV that a serial rapist attacked the FBI director's daughter; the girl commits suicide and Cassie is demoted to a post in Sarasota, Fla. Estranged from her family, she's stuck reporting on hurricanes. But there's another storm brewing: young Vincent Baylor finds a human hand on the beach and takes a ring from the finger, figuring the money will help his overworked mom and sick little brother, but the killer (who also happens to be the rapist) wants the ring back and will kill again to get it. It turns out there were loads of men who might have wanted to harm the victim, porn star Marilee Qui¤ones, including the smarmy manager of a boy band, an antisocial eye doctor and one of her co-stars. Cassie strikes up a friendship with Vincent that puts her in the path of the killer as a hurricane heads up the coast. Though the plot is brisk and absorbing, it's a bit facile overall and Clark is too heavy-handed with the red herrings. Worse yet, everything is weighed down by cliches and a slack prose style, as evidenced by a profusion of lines like "Yep, life could turn on a dime."
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (August 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312288662
• ISBN-13: 978-0312288662
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,673,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mary Jane Clark is the New York Times bestselling author of fourteen novels: 12 KEY News media thrillers and 2 Piper Donovan/Wedding Cake Mysteries. A former writer and producer at CBS News in New York City, Clark is the daughter of an FBI agent and mother of two. She lives in Florida and New Jersey.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Completely absorbing!, August 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Nobody Knows (Hardcover)

I read this book in 2 nights. COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. I was so moved by Vincent and his little brother. I ached for their mom. I felt for Cassie (and her distant daughter). But mostly my heart was racing and I could never have guessed who was behind the murders. (Until the end, of course, at which point it made perfect sense).

This is Mary Jane Clark's best book. I loved LET ME WHISPER IN YOUR EAR too. Now I get to dig into the paperback of CLOSE TO YOU.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A successful TV reporter's mistake costs her dearly., August 18, 2002

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nobody Knows (Hardcover)

Mary Jane Clark's latest thriller, "Nobody Knows," features Cassie Sheridan, a high profile television reporter who makes a serious error in judgment. She reveals the name of a rape victim on the air and Cassie is horrified when her report causes irrevocable damage to the victim. As a result, the victim's family is suing Cassie and her news station. While the lawsuit is pending, Cassie is exiled to Florida as a reporter for a small-time television station, and her career is headed on a downhill spiral. To make matters worse, Cassie's dedication to her job has put her marriage in jeopardy. Her relationship with her husband, Jim, and her daughter, Hannah, has suffered because of the long hours that Cassie has devoted to rising up the ranks in television news.

After moving to Miami, Cassie faces a strong hurricane that is about to hit the coast and she is on the scene when a murderer strikes. The murderer is a person who has killed before, and Cassie may well become one of his next targets.

Mary Jane Clark, former daughter-in-law of Mary Higgins Clark, has learned well from her famous relative. "Nobody Knows" has many of the elements that make Mary Higgins Clark's books so successful. The protagonist of "Nobody Knows" is a sympathetic and attractive woman who is beleaguered by the twists and turns of life, and she must struggle to survive. Mary Jane Clark throws so many suspects into the mix that guessing the identity of the murderer early in the novel is an exercise in futility. What the author does best is describe the rough and tumble world of television news reporting, a topic that she knows well, since she is a producer and writer for CBS news in New York. The author also provides some colorful background about Sarasota, Florida, home of the Ringling Brothers Museum, where part of the novel is set.

The book is fast-paced. It has a great deal of dialogue plus a large cast of characters. The most notable character is a sharp eleven-year-old named Vincent, who has a key role in the plot. However, the murderer is a stock psychopath whom we have seen so often in books of this type, and the ending is formulaic and maudlin. For fans of lightweight mysteries, "Nobody Knows" is a serviceable escapist novel.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fast paced and cleverly disguised journey, May 9, 2003

By 

R. Troyan Krause (Woodbury, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nobody Knows (Hardcover)

This murder mystery is a fast paced and cleverly disguised journey. I was wrong in each instance along the way when, in my mind, I labeled one of the characters the likely perp and I just about covered them all.

In all honesty, before this I was not familiar with Clark's other titles or her name. I can guarantee you that will now change. She's my kind of author.