Silent Night [Hardcover]

Mary Higgins Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 1995

Mary Higgins Clark'S Christmas gift for listeners of all seasons.
From America's most beloved writer of suspense comes a very special story about the power of love, and of a child's courage and faith.
When her husband is diagnosed with leukemia, Catherine Dornan and their two young sons accompany him to New York, during the Christmas season, for a life-saving operation. Hoping to divert them from worry about their father, Catherine takes the boys to see some of the city's Christmas Eve sights. When they stop to listen to a street musician, Brian, the younger boy, sees a woman find his mother's wallet, which also holds a precious family memento he believes will save his father's life. Unable to get his mother's attention, Brian follows the woman into the city's subways -- beginning a journey that will threaten his life and change that of his mother and of the woman as well.
Written with warmth, yet set against a background of menace and thrilling suspense, "Silent Night" sings with the spirit of the season, celebrating the mysteries of faith renewed and faith rewarded that we honor every holiday season.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Clark's favored theme of endangered kids (Where Are the Children?, etc.) meshes here with a parable of faith; but, despite swift pacing, the predictability of the story line undercuts the suspense. Catherine Dornan is in Manhattan with her two sons because her husband, Tom, an Omaha pediatrician, is hospitalized there for leukemia and has just had his spleen removed. When a troubled stranger, Cally Hunter, makes off with Catherine's wallet, seven-year-old Brian Dornan doggedly pursues her because the wallet contains a St. Christopher medal that saved the life of his grandfather in WWII, by deflecting a bullet. Brian believes that the medal will save his dad's life, too, as his grandmother has predicted, and he is determined to get it back. Enter Jimmy Siddons, Cally's brother, a cop killer escaped from Riker's Island prison, who abducts Brian, holding him hostage at gunpoint as he heads for Canada in a stolen car. In the finale, as Catherine prays during Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the cops and Siddons, Brian at his side, engage in a high-speed chase, in which the St. Christopher medal becomes vital to the boy's safety. Clark blatantly, if cleverly, pulls all the sentimental strings here, but most readers will find this a heartwarming, affirmative tale of the power of faith. 750,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection; simultaneous S&S audiotape.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA?It is Christmas Eve in New York City when Brian, a determined seven year old, follows the thief who took his mother's wallet, hoping to retrieve the St. Christopher's medal that he believes will save his father, who has leukemia, just as it saved his grandfather in World War II. However, the child is kidnapped by a vicious escaped convict who needs a hostage. The central characters come to life rapidly as the fast-moving story quickly builds suspense. Teens will appreciate the realistic, paradoxical description of the relationship between Brian and his older brother: caring, concerned, and name-calling at the same time. Although readers know that the ending will be a happy one, they won't expect the coincidences and the touching holiday details.?Claudia Moore, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 154 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (October 16, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684815451
• ISBN-13: 978-0684815459
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,160,707 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

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Of Her Best, January 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Silent Night (Mass Market Paperback)

This is one of Mary Higgins Clark's best books. Although short, it packs action and suspense onto each and every page. The child-hero was terrific--a real boy any of us could identify with. I really cared and I thank the author for that. I just wish Ms. Clark would stop making her female heroines (i.e., the child's mother) so physically gorgeous! Can't we have someone ordinary for a change?

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars GOOD HOLIDAY READ!, January 2, 2004

By 

Dana Y. Bowles "DYB" (West Chester, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Silent Night (Mass Market Paperback)

Catherine Dornan appears to have it all--a comfortable lifestyle, a loving husband and two wonderful little boys. Then her physician husband falls ill with a life-threatening illness. The boys' grandmother gives them a St. Christopher medal--that saved her husband's life in World War II--and instructs them to give it to their father, and it will make him well. Although skeptical, Catherine Dornan does as her mother instructs and places the St. Christopher medal in her wallet for safekeeping. Little Brian Dornan however, the youngest of the two boys, is relying on that medal to make his father well again. So when he spots a woman pick up his mother's wallet from off of the ground while at Rockefeller center listening to Christmas carols, he takes off in hot pursuit. Brian has no idea what is waiting for him when he finally catches up with the young woman; and it soon becomes clear to Brian that St. Christopher may save not only his father's life--but perhaps his own.

DYB

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Made for TV fluff, August 9, 2000

By 

R. Stephens (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silent Night (Mass Market Paperback)

This book reads like one of the worst made for TV movies. The plot was entirely predictable. Zero character development. At best I would recommend this for a 10 year old.