The Second Time Around: A Novel

The Second Time Around: A Novel

The "Queen of Suspense," Mary Higgins Clark, delivers a gripping tale of deception and tantalizing twists that might have been ripped from today's headlines.When Nicholas Spencer, the charismatic head of a company that has developed an anticancer vaccine, disappears without a trace, reporter Marcia "Carley" DeCarlo is assigned the story. Word that Spencer, if alive, has made off with huge sums of money -- including the life savings of many employees -- doesn't do much to change Carley's already low opinion of Spencer's wife, Lynn, who is also Carley's stepsister and whom everyone believes is involved. But when Lynn's life is threatened, she asks Carley to help her prove that she wasn't her husband's accomplice. As the facts unfold, however, Carley herself becomes the target of a dangerous, sinister group that will stop at nothing to get what they want.ReviewIn an age when crime fiction is king, new authors fall over themselves to raise body counts, display expert knowledge of cop talk and generally get as gruesome as can be, the gentle but persuasive style of Mary Higgins Clark is a joy to behold. She builds her stories with subtlety, adding layer of plot upon layer of plot until the noose is tight and you're choking with the anticipation of it all! And so it is with "The Second Time Around", Higgins Clark once more employing the tactic of family love and betrayal to turn the reader on. When a brilliant and innovative scientist on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer goes missing, with billions in company funds syphoned off, the presumption is that he has done a runner with the loot... and when a plane crash seems to confirm his death, well, he's living it up in Switzerland, innit? But, as with all the best MHC stories, all is not as it appears... and soon those same layers of plot that set the story up are peeled off again to reveal a different tale. This is what makes her so good and such a great read. Add "The Second Time Around" to a great Higgins Clark canon. - Harry Doherty --naAbout the AuthorThe #1New York Times bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark wrote forty suspense novels, four collections of short stories, a his?orical novel, a memoir, and two children?s books. With bestselling author Alafair Burke she wrote the Under Suspicion series includingThe Cinderella Murder,All Dressed in White,The Sleeping Beauty Killer,Every Breath You Take, andYou Don?t Own Me. With her daughter Carol Higgins Clark, she coauthored five more suspense novels. More than one hundred million copies of her books are in print in the United States alone. Her books are international bestsellers.Excerpt. ?Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Chapter OneThe stockholders' meeting, or maybe the stockholders'uprising is a better way to describe the event, took place on April 21 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan. It was an unseasonably cold and wintry day, but suitably bleak considering the circumstances. The headline two weeks earlier that Nicholas Spencer, president and chief operating officer of Gen-stone had been killed in the crash of his private plane while flying to San Juan had been greeted with genuine and heartfelt grief. His company expected to receive the blessing of the Food and Drug Administration for a vaccine that would both eliminate the possibility of the growth of cancer cells and bring to a halt the progression of the disease in those already afflicted -- a preventive and a cure that he alone was responsible for bringing to the world. He named the company "Gen-stone," a reference to the Rosetta stone that had unveiled the language of ancient Egypt and allowed the appreciation of its remarkable culture.The headline proclaiming Spencer's disappearance was followed in short order by the announcement from the chairman of the board of Gen-stone that there had been numerous setbacks in the experiments with the vaccine and that it could not be submitted to the FDA f