Customer Reviews

The Shadow of Your Smile

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

The Shadow of Your Smile, the latest thriller from Mary Higgins Clark, is in almost every way typical of her previous books. I want to say right away that I enjoyed it, much more than her last book as a matter of fact. MHC raises some interesting points concerning the natural conflict between faith and science in this one.

Dr. Monica Farrell, a pediatrician with a successful practice in New York, doesn't know her father's birth mother was a woman who later took vows and is now being considered for sainthood. Miracles of healing have been attributed to Sister Catherine, her grandmother, including one involving a patient of Monica's with terminal brain cancer. Dr. Farrell is no longer a practicing Catholic and considers herself to be a scientist first and foremost. To her, miracles are simply events that will have a logical explanation some time in the future.

The man who fathered Catherine's child was an inventor whose patents provided an enormous income he willed to "any issue" of his, not knowing what had happened to the child Catherine bore in secret. The default heirs are two brothers whose greed and dishonest business practices have resulted in the necessity for multiple murder to keep their house of cards from collapsing. After the suspicious death of a close friend of Dr. Farrell's, one who was trying to help her find her father's parents, Monica is marked to be the next victim.

As with all other MHC books, there is no bad language, no descriptions of heavy sex or blood or violence, although obviously bodies do turn up - proof that a good thriller doesn't have to commit assault and battery on the senses. The female characters, whether eighteen or eighty-eight are all lady-like, dress conservatively, drink pots of tea and come from solid Catholic families. Come to think of it, the male characters are like that, too. But MHC is no lady when it comes to plotting. "Shadow" has some very ingenious twists and turns, and the steady pacing kept me turning the pages well past my bedtime.

When 82-year-old Olivia Morrow receives the news that she is dying and has little time left, she must make a big decision. Many years ago, her deceased cousin Catherine, who became a nun, had a big secret. And Olivia has letters in her possession that confirm the details of the fact that, at age seventeen, Catherine gave birth to a baby boy, whom she subsequently put up for adoption. The child's father, Alex Gannon, went on to become a world-famous doctor, scientist, and inventor holding medical patents.

Just to complicate things a bit further, this same nun is being considered for "beatification" because of alleged miracles she has performed, by healing terminally ill children.

Meanwhile, also living in New York City is Dr. Monica Farrell, daughter of that same child, completely unaware that she is the only living "issue" of that famous man. His other relatives--nephew, etc.--are squandering the fortune and are involved in nefarious activities. Unaware of the possible connection between them, Dr. Farrell is being called upon to "testify" as to the medical facts and supposed miracle that healed one of her patients, all in support of the sainthood of this nun.

So the scene is set. What will Olivia do? And what will certain others do to keep the truth from coming to life?

Through the pages and chapters, which I am rapidly turning as the suspense builds, we see glimpses of each of these characters and watch as events speed up and tensions heighten, while lives hang in the balance--literally. I enjoyed the way the author pulled in supposedly incidental characters and created unique circumstances that would help bring down the house of cards built by the unworthy characters, somehow forestalling disaster.

This was a very quick read, due in large part to the way this author builds suspense and gives us layers of the story, with each subsequent chapter bringing us closer to the ultimate conclusion.

The Shadow of Your Smile was a definite five star read for me!

I have always been a fan of Mary Higgins Clark so it pains me to write this review. The story was not as bad as others suggest, a little far fetched, but I dont mind suspending belief a bit if the story is good. Sadly it was not.

I had a hard time relating to the actions and thoughts/dialog of the characters. The young people, well they acted and talked like much older people. I dont mean wiser, I mean the dialog seemed to be from a much older generation. It completely removed me from the story.

The thought process of the characters was too simplistic. Plus so much of the the characters thoughts were completely irrelevent. The characters thought in a dialog of an older generation as well. Reading the characters workig out every thought in their head with outdated cliches was just too much for me.

And this might be a bit nitpicky but as a mother of young children, I was completely thrown from the story when the Doctor suggested baby aspirin for a toddler. What? You dont give aspiring to young children anymore. And also giving a bottle to a 19 month old toddler. Again, nitpicky but it is generally suggested to wear a child from a bottle by 12 months, yet this Doctor was feeding a toddler not just milk but other drinks like water from a bottle. Perhaps a bit more research would have been in order.

All in all, I cannot recommend this book, and I hate that, because I grew up reading MHC's books and loved to share them with others.

MHC is becoming so increasingly formulaic that she could probably dash these things off in her sleep. Or maybe she actually does. The characters (and there are far too many of them) are unbelievable (woman who had an illegitimate child becomes a nun and is--after death, of course--on the path to sainthood), dialogue is stilted (Who in New York ever calls that state across the Hudson "New Jersey"? It's "Jersey."), and errors and typos are rife. Clark always thanks her director of copyediting, but heaven knows why; a number of quotes begin but never end, at least one time an adult character's name in dialogue is substituted for another, and there is a reference to a biblical episode that does not in fact exist.
Save your money and your time.

I have been a Mary Higgins Clark fan since her very first book. I love her stories so much that I will never lend them out and read and re-read them. As soon as a new book comes out I order it and then cannot put it down until I am done. This book is not like any of Ms. Clark's at all. The characters are shallow, the plot sooooo boring and ridiculous and I basically had to force myself to finish it just for curiosity sake. I hope Ms. Clark goes back to her old style of writing that made all of us love her novels so much.

I always look forward to the latest Mary Higgins Clark, but perhaps she cranked this one out just a bit too fast. Most MHC books hook you so that you can barely put them down; you just have to turn to the next chapter. This one just never seemed to take hold. Perhaps part of the problem is that we never really got that close to Monica Farrell, our lady in jeopardy; most of Clark's novels get you inside the main character's head, but I always felt as if I were observing this character from a distance, and quite often through the eyes of other characters. So it was difficult to remember that she's the person in danger -- or that the danger is even particularly real.

I have read all of her books and i must say this one was the worst.
I started reading it and felt compelled to finish it. It was slow..no real "plot"..and just plain hard to finish.

I've read several of Mary Higgin Clark's books and will probably continue to do so in the future. This one, however, was a big disappointment. Not from the perspective that it didn't have a good storyline, but as an adoptive parent, I just couldn't get past some of the stereotypes and wording.

The blood is thicker than water comment, as if adoptive families do not have as strong a bond as biological families, the "real parents" phrases. These are all irrelevant things that in my opinion were not really necessary to the storyline.

I got this one from the library, glad I did not purchase it.

I have been a fan of MHC from the very beginning, and look forward to her books as they arrive. This one really disappointed me. The writing and story line were boring, and I just could not get into the characters - I just did not care what happened to them. In fact, I stopped reading it half-way through. Like anyone, my time is just too valuable to waste it reading a book because I usually like the author. Come on, MHC, I know writing is not easy but I also know you can do it. Please put some more time and thought into the next one as your readers really want you to succeed!

I have always loved MHC and I always look forward to her new books. But this year's novel was disappointing. We knew from the outset who the bad guys were, and some potential mysteries were simply not followed up upon, for instance the miraculous recovery of a young cancer patient. Was it a miracle or was there a medical explanation for it? Since this question was never answered you'd have to assume that it was a miracle, but mysteries with no real solution is not the way MHC usually writes her books. I was waiting the whole book for Monica's colleague, the neuro surgeon, to come up with some scientific solution that nobody had thought about.

I also found the scene at the end of a book, where the man who wants to kill Monica pretends to be a police officer and tells her to leave her apartment right away because someone is on the verge of breaking in, extremley unrealistic...and she falls for it. Normally, wouldn't the police just arrest the guy, instead of asking the tenant to get out?

I am really sad to have to write this review but, in my opinion, this is one of MHC's worst books to date. I hope old age is not taking its toll on her; she was born in 1929, so she will 81 this year.