Where Are the Children?

Mary Higgins Clark made an entire career out of exploiting women’s deepest fears — abusive husbands, kidnapped children, manipulative doctors — and turning them into simple but frightening suspense novels. In Where Are the Children?, Clark's first and best book, Nancy Harmon believes she has rebuilt her life following the death of her husband and two children. She remarries, relocates to Cape Cod, and establishes a new family. But someone in her new town discovers her past and threatens to expose her. This is an unusually strong and well-plotted thriller. (By the way, David Foster Wallace included Where Are the Children? on his Illinois State University English 102 syllabus, and his papers reveal extensive annotations inside the book.)