Remember me

A tinge of the supernatural flavors the latest entry from our leading practitioner of the damsel-in-distress school of suspense. Just what is the mysterious presence that seems to haunt Menley Nichols and baby Hannah in their spectacular rented Cape Cod mansion? Menley is still trying to recover from the horror of her two-year-old son Bobby's death on the railroad crossing. Lawyer husband Adam is too busy dashing to and from New York, and defending a local hunk suspected of doing away with his wealthy bride, to be much help. And so the presence moves in on Menley, Rebecca style, with eerie middle-of-the-night sound effects and rocking cradles. As always with Clark, there are several plots going on at once, which are miraculously blended and resolved in the finale; people to watch out for here include a pretty waitress in a local inn and a real estate lady who is an old flame of Adam's. Clark opens herself to charges of excessive authorial legerdemain by employing many narrative points of view, including those of at least two guilty parties (without ever offering a clue as to their guilt), but that's a quibble. The denouement is reasonably pulse-pounding, if a little strained. All in all, it's a reliable enough outing for the countless Clark aficionados, though it seems, perhaps in sync with its historic setting, rather more old-fashioned than usual. 750,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection; S & S audio. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Everything you'd expect from the reigning queen of prepubescent female suspense: A bereaved young mother battles demons from a recent mystery, from the distant past, and from her own fearful imaginings about the impending fate of her infant daughter. Two years after her son Bobby is killed in a collision with a train, children's author Menley Nichols, still haunted by anxiety attacks about Hannah, the daughter whose birth reunited her with her estranged lawyer husband, Adam, is vacationing with them in Remember House in the Cape Cod town of Chatham. What seems like a remake of Gaslight--Menley starts to hear Bobby calling to her, friends and neighbors report seeing her in places she doesn't remember being--heats up when Adam accepts an unseasonable client: Scott Covey, the penniless charmer accused of drowning his moneyed wife, Vivian, in a scuba accident. Chatham has already closed ranks against Scott, who evidently carried on a romance with main-chance local waitress Tina Aroldi till shortly before his own (very recent) wedding: Only Adam's old friend, realtor Elaine Atkins, and Scott's neighbor Henry Sprague back up his story of mutual devotion. As Adam chases leads that might help clear Scott, Menley, egged on by cryptic hints from Henry's Alzheimer-ravaged historian wife, Phoebe, immerses herself in another mystery: the riddle of why Mehitabel Freeman, for whom Remember House was first built 300 years before, went to her death denying the charge of adultery (though the other man in the case admitted it) that allowed her seafaring husband to take her own baby away. With such a tangle of villainous plots, you'd expect as many loose ends as in I'll Be Seeing You (1993). Miraculously, though, Clark, working like a steam engine, pulls everything together in a story that suits her gifts for compelling narrative (and her pulpish limitations) perfectly. Readers more interested in mystery than menace may well find this her best book yet. (Literary Guild main selection; author tour)

By 9 P.M. the storm had broken with full force, and a stiff wind was sending powerful waves crashing against the eastern shore of Cape Cod. We're going to get more than a touch of the nor'easter, Menley thought as she reached over the sink to close the window. It might actually be fun, she thought, in an effort to reassure herself. The Cape airports were closed, so Adam had rented a car to drive from Boston. He should be home soon. There was plenty of food on hand. She had stocked up on candles, just in case the electricity went out, although if she was right about what she was beginning to suspect, the thought of being in this house with only candlelight was frightening. She switched on the radio, twisted the dial and found the Chatham station that played forties music. She raised an eyebrow in surprise as the Benny Goodman orchestra went into the opening notes of "Remember." A particularly appropriate song when you're living in a place called Remember House, she thought. Pushing aside the inclination to flip the dial again, she picked up a serrated knife and began to slice tomatoes for a salad. When he phoned, Adam told her he hadn't had time to eat. "But you forgot to remember," the vocalist warbled. The unique sound that the wind made when it rushed past the house was starting again. Perched high on the embankment over the churning water, the house became a kind of bellows in a wind storm, and the whooshing sound it emitted had the effect of a distant voice calling out "Remember, Remember..." The legend was that over the decades that peculiarity had given the house its name. Menley shivered as she reached for the celery. Adam will be here soon, she promised herself. He'd have a glass of wine while she made some pasta. There was a sudden noise. What was that? Had a door blown open? Or a window? Something was wrong. She snapped off the radio. The baby! Was she crying? Was that a cry or a muffed, gagging sound? Menley hurried to the counter, grabbed the monitor and held it to her ear. Another choking gasp and then nothing. The baby was choking! She rushed from the kitchen into the foyer, toward the staircase. The delicate fan-shaped window over the front door sent gray and purple shadows along the wide-plank floor. Her feet barely touched the stairs as she raced to the second floor and down the hall. An instant later she was at the door of the nursery. There was no sound coming from the crib. "Hannah, Hannah," she cried. Hannah was lying on her stomach, her arms outstretched, her body motionless. Frantically, Menley leaned down, turning the baby as she picked her up. Then her eyes widened in horror. The china head of an antique doll rested against her hand. A painted face stared back at her. Menley tried to scream, but no sound came from her lips. And then from behind her a voice whispered, "I'm sorry, Menley. It's all over." Copyright © 1995 by Mary Higgins Clark Excerpted from Remember Me by Mary Higgins Clark All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.