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Book Review By amy blaine
Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark

Nancy Harmon was a housewife who took her two children, a boy and a girl, to the store to get some things and deciding she would only be in the store a minute, just left them in the car. When she came out of the store, her car was gone and so were the children. They were found days later in the water with plastic around their heads. Nancy was accused of murdering her two children and was eventually acquitted because the main witness came up missing. Nancy moved across the country trying to escape the reporters and prying eyes of the public, and she wanted to start a new life. A new life without her children. She plead her innocence but no one believed her so she just started over.

Nancy had started to get on with her life. She remarried, had two more children and the pain of losing her children was starting to go away when the horror was starting over again. Her children were outside playing one morning and when she went to check on them they were gone. Again. This time she was determined to find who was behind this but that was harder than she thought because everyone believed that she was guilty again. Nancy tries to unravel the secrets and has to face the horrors of her past to find the answers to whose behind this once and for all.


Plot & Themes
Tone of story - suspenseful (sophisticated fear)
How difficult to spot villain? - Difficult, but some clues given
Time/era of story:
What % of story relates directly to the mystery, not the subplot? - 70%
Special suspect? - relative
Misc. Murder Plotlets - local police w/ IQ of a houseplant - "All in the family" murder - solving long-past murder
Kind of investigator
Kid or adult book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
descript. of violence and chases - 20 %
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 40 %
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30 %
How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 10 %
Crime Thriller Yes
Murder Mystery (killer unknown) Yes

Main Character
Gender - Female
Profession/status:
Age: - 20's-30's
Ethnicity/Race
Unusual characteristics:

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 40's-50's
Profession/status:
Eccentric: Yes
How sensitive is this character?
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Very much smarter than other characters

Setting
United States Yes
The US: - Northeast
Small town? Yes
Small town people: - nice, like Andy/Opie/Aunt Bee

Writing Style
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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