Mary Higgins Clark Is a

¶ … Mary Higgins Clark is a book in the thriller genre. It follows a young woman named Carolyn while she attempts to uncover just what has happened to her brother Charles, who is also known as Mack, after he disappears without a trace. Mack hasn't had any contact with anyone except his mother -- whom he calls every year on Mother's Day to wish her a happy one. During these calls, Mack also tells his mother that he is doing just fine.

However, on the tenth anniversary of the day Mack disappeared, Carolyn intercepts the phone call to their mother and wants to know where he is and why he has chosen to leave the family without a single explanation. She is bound and determined to find out what has become of him -- and why. Carolyn is the protagonist of the story as she is the person who begins the action of the story.

Carolyn was only 16-years-old when Mack left and she has suffered this loss deeply; it hasn't helped that she has been the sole person to help her mother with the grief of losing her son as well. Carolyn is 26-years-old now and has had enough of the lies; she is going to find Mack. Though her mother and Elliot, a family friend, don't think that looking for Mack is the right thing to do, she doesn't care and has already made up her mind.

She needs to start rebuilding her life and, for her, that means making sense of the past concerning her brother. Carolyn is a law school graduate who loves her brother a great deal, but she also feels a tremendous amount of resentment towards him. Carolyn's father died in the 9/11 attacks and yet Mack didn't make an appearance for the family. This incident seems to be a major heartbreak for Carolyn, not just because of her own loss, but also because of her mother's.

Carolyn has had to be strong for the family and it is almost like the family has had two deaths. Her resentment as well as her love and need for a more complete family is what motivates her to once and for all uncover the truth. Specific Problems the Characters Face: The persistent Carolyn makes her first stop the local police station; however, the detective working doesn't have much interest in her story.

A young woman then goes missing near her home and she realizes that the circumstances are much like two other cases where young women went missing. These disappearances have all occurred within the last ten years, which sparks Carolyn's curiosity. Carolyn has just finished her clerkship and she feels like she is the perfect person to investigate this. Carolyn later receives a strange note that tells her to back off of the case.

Her mother and Elliot have increasing concern for her well-being, but she ignores their wishes to stop the investigation. Carolyn is then hit with another surprise. The police, who are now involved, suggest that Mack, her brother, may have had something to do -- may even be responsible -- for the disappearance of a girl at a club where Mack often went while he was in college. Mack, as well as his old roommates, Nick and Bruce, are now suspects in this young' woman's disappearance.

Carolyn becomes fiercely defensive of her brother and her loyalty to him is apparent, yet she is still going to find him. But now she not only wants to find him because she misses him and her family needs him, but now she needs to find him so that she can clear his name of the charges against Carolyn faces some major external conflict as well as internal. She doesn't have anyone to support what she is doing.

She could simply give up and stop looking for Mack, but there is an internal struggle with her. Her parents were so grief-stricken when he left. Now their father is dead (9/11 attacks) and she remembers how though there was no evidence that her brother was dead, "in the beginning, my mother and father were sometimes asked to view the body of some unidentified young man who had been fished out of the river or killed in an accident" (2).

Have the Problems Been Settled? The problems clearly have not been settled before getting to the last chapters of the book. There is still the question of what happened to Mack -- and if he is out there somewhere, is he a serial killer? Is he insane? Could Mary Higgins Clark have made him either one of these things. Even the mother, Olivia, seems to believe that he is crazy because he had some kind of breakdown. All this is up in the air still.

There are a lot of questions (and a lot of red herrings) towards the end of the book. The reader is questioning what the Kramers are up to (Are they hiding something? Do they really know something about Mack?), and why does Uncle Devon seems like he doesn't want Mack to be found at all? These questions keep the reader wondering and also keep the tension of the book ever increasing. Mary Higgins Clark doesn't seem to want to.