I'll Walk Alone

It is not surprising that Mary Higgins Clark, who wrote, I'll Walk Alone, is a New York Times bestselling author. She is an experienced writer with thirty suspense novels to her credit. In addition she co-wrote five holiday themed suspense novels with her daughter Carol Higgins Clark. She has also published collections of short stories, a children's book, historical novel and memoir.

When I began reading I'll Walk Alone, Clark quickly drew me into the story. She was able to make me care about Zan, a single woman building her own interior design business. The tale begins on the fifth birthday of Zan's son Matthew. Matthew disappeared two years previously. It appeared someone snatched the baby from the stroller when the babysitter fell asleep on a blanket in the park.

Zan believes her ex-boss, Bartley Longe is behind her son's kidnapping. He hates her because she spurned his advances. Tired of his demands and verbal abuse, she quit the job, started her own business, competing for jobs against him and getting coveted contracts. Zan's work keeps her mind occupied or else she feels she would go insane.

She declines invitations to spend the evening with friends on this sad day and instead accepts an invitation to have dinner with her ex-husband, Matthew's father Ted. Dinner is interrupted when Ted and Zan are told photographs have surfaced showing Zan herself removing baby Matthew from the stroller that day. Zan insists that the woman who snatched Matthew looks like her, but is not her. Ted and her friends suspect she is deranged. The police now believe she fooled them. Once friendly, the babysitter makes up lies to tell the investigating officer. Hence the book's title: I'll Walk Alone.

How often does a mystery novel bring me to the verge of tears?

After graduating from Little Golden Books, my sister started me reading Bobbsey Twins novels. I then worked my way through her Nancy Drew mystery books and my brother's Hardy Boy mysteries. Perhaps that is why, as an adult, I read a lot of detective and murder mystery fiction novels. Those novels can evoke a lot of emotions: anger, fear, suspenseful anticipation, satisfaction when I figure out whodunit before the mystery is resolved. Never before reading, I'll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark, did my eyes fill with tears, not once but several times while reading a fictional mystery novel.

That may be due to the sensational Casey Anthony murder trial being fresh in my mind; or 10-month-old baby, Lisa Irwin's recent disappearance. Yet it takes an excellent writer to use words in such a way as to evoke strong emotions, which is why I do not find it surprising that Mary Higgins Clark is a bestselling author.

I'll Walk Alone was published by Simon & Schuster copyright 2011. At 337 pages the well crafted novel is a quick, easy read. I recommend it.