The Second Time Around [Large Print] [Paperback]

Mary Higgins Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2004

A New York Times Bestselling Author

The private plane of Nicholas Spencer, charismatic head of the medical research company Gen-stone, crashes, but his body isn't found. The FDA denies approval of the company's highly promising cancer vaccine. That news is followed by the shocking revelation that Spencer had looted Gen-stone of huge sums of money. Marcia "Carley" DeCarlo, columnist for the Wall Street Weekly, is assigned to cover the story. Carley's stepsister is Spencer's wife, Lynn, a socialite whom she dislikes and distrusts. Accused of having participated in the scam, Lynn appears indifferent to the anger and despair of Gen-stone's stockholders . . . until she narrowly escapes death when her mansion is set on fire.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

There's something special about Clark's thrillers, and it's not just the gentleness with which the bestselling writer approaches her often lurid subject matter (in this one, for instance, there are numerous killings, but all occur off-page). Special above all is the compassion she extends to her characters-heroines, villains and supporting cast alike. In this latest effort, she conjures empathy even toward a mass killer, whose murderous spree has been sparked by a corporate crime. The smoothly told tale is narrated partly from the third-person perspective of the killer, and partly from the first-person point of view of Wall Street Weekly correspondent Carley De Carlo. Carley is the stepsister of Lynn Spencer, whose charismatic husband, Nicholas, dies in the crash of his small plane as he is fleeing arrest for looting the medical company he founded, which had made claims of a cancer cure, now proved false. Myriad investors have lost much, sometimes everything; one is Ned Cooper, whose beloved wife died as a consequence of Nicholas Spencer's thievery, and who determines to take revenge, setting off on a killing spree. Assigned to do a feature about the Spencer case, Carley digs deep, uncovering clues to a conspiracy within Spencer's medical company, as well as to the possibility that the cancer cure worked after all. Can she get to the bottom of the mess before Ned Cooper, or the possible conspirators, take her out? Clark's fans know the answer to that question, but what the novel lacks in suspense it makes up for in grace, charm and solid storytelling.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-A feature writer for a newspaper, Carley DeCarlo has been assigned to do an article on the life and death of Nicholas Spencer, an eminent researcher who was on the verge of developing a pharmaceutical cure for cancer. Since millions of specially donated dollars are missing from his firm, his airplane accident may have been a faked suicide, or murder. Occasional chapters feature a disturbed man as he retaliates for the death of his wife, which he blames on Spencer's firm. Carley's portion of the story is written in first person so readers follow her doubts and triumphs as clues are revealed. She is a true sleuth; she often gets a clue that confuses her, but she keeps on investigating. Tension builds gradually as readers see both the heroine and the schizophrenic at work. But is he the only villain? Short chapters help to keep the suspenseful plot moving along.
Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 2003 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: 448 pages
• Publisher: Large Print Press; 1 edition (April 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594130248
• ISBN-13: 978-1594130243
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,695,183 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

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great new Clark: suspenseful but realistic thriller, April 22, 2003

By 

Gerald M. Bull "Jerry Bull" (Fairview, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Second Time Around (Hardcover)

We can't really remember Clark's first dozen or so books that well, but her novels from this latest decade invariably feature high-achieving leading ladies who prevail above all to solve the mystery at hand. If we have a peeve, it's that these "wonder women" do so while looking glamorous at all times, while outsmarting every other character in the book (including almost always the police), by outrunning or outgunning everybody intent on doing them harm, etc. You get the drift -- interesting fiction but hardly real life.

So it was good to read a story, featuring leading lady Carley De Carlo, a financial free-lance writer and new employee of "Wall Street Weekly", where the plot and main premise are not overshadowed so totally by the star woman at hand. Our interest was captured at the outset in learning that Nicholas Spencer, CEO of a firm close to a cancer vaccine solution, has died in a small aircraft crash, after absconding with what millions were left in the company, having discovered that the vaccine is a failure. But then he is spotted in Switzerland?

The book alternates between searching for Spencer (or at least the truth) and a series of serial killings (done with little explicit action, mostly away from the narrative) by one of the numerous investors, large and small, who were stung by the company financially as well as disappointed by the lack of the promising vaccine, often the only hope of their loved ones. The killer eventually sets his sights on Carley, and it remains til near the end to see who comes out with the real story about everything.

Clark has served up exactly that for which she is well-known: a well-crafted tale, complete with heroes and villains and more than enough suspense to hold our interest; intriguing characters we care about -- it's even a little tough not to empathize with the killer; and a mystery that moves along smartly enough to entertain without divulging too much too soon. We commend the author on one of her better recent works, and suspect that most readers will thoroughly enjoy this novel, finding it an appealing contribution to the genre.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mary Higgins Clark Excels With Novel Of Medical Fraud, June 26, 2003

By 

Antoinette Klein (Hoover, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Second Time Around (Hardcover)

I am a huge Mary Higgins Clark fan, and although this book was most enjoyable, I may have reached the end of my fascination for the "young girl in jeopardy" plot MHC has so successfully mastered. After more than twenty novels following the same basic pattern, the plots have become a little too familiar, the ending a bit too predictable.

With that being said, I still enjoyed this one. The deception and suspense were first-rate as always and the idea of corporate fraud very timely. The charismatic Nicholas Spencer who is determined to develop his vaccine that cures cancer is larger-than-life. Readers are drawn to him as we learn about his first wife's ill-fated battle with cancer and his concern for his own son and the millions of children he wants to save from the heartbreak of losing a parent to cancer.

Investigative reporter Carley DeCarlo is the heroine who has not only a professional interest in the disappearance of Nicholas Spencer but also a personal one. She is the stepsister of his second wife and wants to either clear his name of the fraud he is accused of or be satisfied that he did indeed loot the company and offer false hope to patients.

Carley is led on a hot trail of clues as she tries to establish Spencer's guilt or innocence while a disturbed killer who lost money on the vaccine methodically kills every person he feels has committed an injustice against him.

Watching the threads come together and uncovering the a world of medical fraud and financial manipulation is interesting, but it is the cancer patients themselves who make this book tug at your heartstrings. A young girl and a grown man find new life thanks to Spencer's vaccine, but others will fall hard as the truth comes to light.

Meanwhile, Carley's own tragic past is revealed and a new love gives her support and hope as she discovers love the second time around.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read, October 29, 2003

By 

Beverly J. Scott "Author and avid reader" (Ankeny, IA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Second Time Around (Hardcover)

ISBN: 0743206061
Title: The Second Time Around
Author: Mary Higgins Clark
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Clark Pens another bestseller with her novel "The Second Time Around." Suspense builds as investigative reporter Carley DeCarlo delves into the mysterious events surrounding the reported disappearance and possible death of Nicholas Spencer, head of prominent medical research company. Diligent digging into rumors of the failure of Gen-Stone's cancer cure convince Carley that the rumors are false and that something sinister is afloat. Mary Higgins Clark is a master at creating page turners, and "The Second Time Around" is no exception.
Beverly J Scott author of "Righteous Revenge" and "Ruth Fever." Reviewer for Intriguing Authors and Their Books at http://www.funeralassociates.com/authors.htm