Suspense

An interesting idea with a not so good realisation.
As a casual Mary Higgins Clark reader in my teens I expected more from it.

I couldn't really get myself to like it and was annoyed by the characters which all seemed flat and unreal. I was even more annoyed by the dialogues and had a hard time not to roll my eyes constantly.

By the end of the book I just wanted to facepalm myself because of its obviousness and unrealistic optimism. ( )

Personally, I don't think you can ever go wrong with Mary Higgins Clark. A quick, fast paced, light-hearted mystery. Love her books. ( )

FROM PUBLISHER: Alexandra “Zan” Moreland, a gifted, beautiful interior designer on the threshold of a successful Manhattan career, is terrified to discover that somebody is not only using her credit cards and manipulating her financial accounts to bankrupt her and destroy her reputation but may also be impersonating her in a scheme that may involve the much more brutal crimes of kidnapping and murder.

Zan is already haunted by the disappearance of her own son, Matthew, kidnapped in broad daylight two years ago in Central Park—a tragedy that has left her torn between hope and despair.

Now, on what would be Matthew’s fifth birthday, photos surface that seem to show Zan kidnapping her own child, followed by a chain of events that suggests somebody—but who? Zan asks herself desperately, and why? —has stolen her identity.

Hounded by the press, under investigation by the police, attacked by both her angry ex-husband and a vindictive business rival, Zan, wracked by fear and pain and sustained only by her belief, which nobody else shares, that Matthew is still alive, sets out to discover who is behind this cruel hoax. ( )

This was a good solid story. Zan's son, Matthew, was stolen from her two years earlier. Now someone is trying to make her seem crazy and ruin her life. The reader knows all along that this really happened, but we have to watch Zan trying to convince her friends and the police of her innocence. When the villain is revealed, his motivation is hard to understand. We are left with the conclusion that he is just a crazy psychopath. At times I was frustrated with everyone doubting Zan, but the end came together in a satisfying way. ( )