Remember Me [Hardcover]

Mary Higgins Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 1994

After their young son's tragic death, Menley and Tony Richardson, a couple living on Cape Cod, try to begin life anew with a baby daughter, though an evil fate still seems to stalk them. 150,000 first printing. $150,000 ad/promo. Lit Guild Main. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A tinge of the supernatural flavors the latest entry from our leading practitioner of the damsel-in-distress school of suspense. Just what is the mysterious presence that seems to haunt Menley Nichols and baby Hannah in their spectacular rented Cape Cod mansion? Menley is still trying to recover from the horror of her two-year-old son Bobby's death on the railroad crossing. Lawyer husband Adam is too busy dashing to and from New York, and defending a local hunk suspected of doing away with his wealthy bride, to be much help. And so the presence moves in on Menley, Rebecca style, with eerie middle-of-the-night sound effects and rocking cradles. As always with Clark, there are several plots going on at once, which are miraculously blended and resolved in the finale; people to watch out for here include a pretty waitress in a local inn and a real estate lady who is an old flame of Adam's. Clark opens herself to charges of excessive authorial legerdemain by employing many narrative points of view, including those of at least two guilty parties (without ever offering a clue as to their guilt), but that's a quibble. The denouement is reasonably pulse-pounding, if a little strained. All in all, it's a reliable enough outing for the countless Clark aficionados, though it seems, perhaps in sync with its historic setting, rather more old-fashioned than usual. 750,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection; S & S audio.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Everything you'd expect from the reigning queen of prepubescent female suspense: A bereaved young mother battles demons from a recent mystery, from the distant past, and from her own fearful imaginings about the impending fate of her infant daughter. Two years after her son Bobby is killed in a collision with a train, children's author Menley Nichols, still haunted by anxiety attacks about Hannah, the daughter whose birth reunited her with her estranged lawyer husband, Adam, is vacationing with them in Remember House in the Cape Cod town of Chatham. What seems like a remake of Gaslight--Menley starts to hear Bobby calling to her, friends and neighbors report seeing her in places she doesn't remember being--heats up when Adam accepts an unseasonable client: Scott Covey, the penniless charmer accused of drowning his moneyed wife, Vivian, in a scuba accident. Chatham has already closed ranks against Scott, who evidently carried on a romance with main-chance local waitress Tina Aroldi till shortly before his own (very recent) wedding: Only Adam's old friend, realtor Elaine Atkins, and Scott's neighbor Henry Sprague back up his story of mutual devotion. As Adam chases leads that might help clear Scott, Menley, egged on by cryptic hints from Henry's Alzheimer-ravaged historian wife, Phoebe, immerses herself in another mystery: the riddle of why Mehitabel Freeman, for whom Remember House was first built 300 years before, went to her death denying the charge of adultery (though the other man in the case admitted it) that allowed her seafaring husband to take her own baby away. With such a tangle of villainous plots, you'd expect as many loose ends as in I'll Be Seeing You (1993). Miraculously, though, Clark, working like a steam engine, pulls everything together in a story that suits her gifts for compelling narrative (and her pulpish limitations) perfectly. Readers more interested in mystery than menace may well find this her best book yet. (Literary Guild main selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 2, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671867083
• ISBN-13: 978-0671867089
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,824,738 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

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars YOU WON'T FORGET "REMEMBER ME", June 19, 2000

By 

Nancy Martin (Pennsylvania (orig. NY)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Remember Me (Library Binding)

Right from the start, this book had me hooked simply because of the Cape Cod setting. Menley and Adam Nichols have rented an old captain's house called The Remember House. As with most very old houses, there is always the rumor that it is haunted. This one is no exception. But Menley has other demons to face besides the ones haunting this house. Her son, Bobby, was killed when a train hit the car Menley was driving. She has been guilt-ridden ever since. Only the birth of their daughter, Hannah, has been able to help Menley with her depression and put their marriage back together. Adam feels that a little rest in such a beautiful place is all that Menley needs to return to her old self.

Shortly after their arrival on the island, Adam, an attorney, becomes enmeshed defending Scott Covey who is accused of murdering his wealthy wife Vivien. While Adam is busy with business, Menley is slowly but surely having a nervous breakdown and it seems to the reader that someone is trying to make her go crazy in true "Hitchcock" style.

As usual, Higgins Clarke throws in some extra characters and clues to throw you off track and hits you with her customary surprise ending.

Please note that I'm giving this book 5 stars for its genre only as well as comparing it to other books by this author.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I stayed up until 7am reading this!, January 3, 2006

By 

Sherry Berry (Elgin, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Remember Me (Mass Market Paperback)

From the moment I opened this book, I was hooked. It just did not feel right if I did not read through the entire book. So I spent the entire night reading this book since 1AM. I was captivated by the characters and how the main character, Menley, gets through the horrible experience of losing a child.

Mark Higgins Clark wrote a powerful book. There were times where I was even afraid to get up and go to the bathroom. I was questioning my own self throughout the book. And the portrayal of post-traumatic stress disorder was amazing. I was feeling what Menley was feeling and at times, I wanted to scream with her and cry with her and be angry at the characters in the story with her.

I did figure out the truth behind the story halfway through but that doesn't mean that the ending wasn't a surprise. At the very end of the pages, you'll find quite a nice twist thrown in. I'm not going to ruin it for you. You just got to read it to find out.

If you enjoy mystery books as much as I do, then you will definitely enjoy this one. Plus, this book isn't just about a good mystery.. it's about a failing marriage, love, getting over a loved one, learning to move on, and so much more. It's a beautiful work and all of the characters were also so well-written.

This book deserves some serious recognition.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mary Higgins Clark's best ever!!!, October 30, 2001

By 

Samantha W. Mckevitt "longislandgirl" (Dix Hills, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Remember Me (Mass Market Paperback)

This is my favorite mystery. I love Mary Higgins Clark. Her books are fast paced, suspenseful with wonderful characters that all interconnect. I always take one of her books on vacation with me! I have read and enjoyed them all.

This one was just a cut above. She mixes more supernatural elements with her usual murder mystery. The Cape Cod setting is extremely intersting- almost a character of its own. Menley is a wonderful heroine that seems even more finely drawn that Clark's usual young protagonists. There are really several interconnecting stories- all exciting and well written.

This is one of the few mysteries that I curl up with again every so often- definately worth reading!