All Through the Night (Holiday Classics)

Serviceable Christmas mystery featuring several plot elements, including an abandoned baby, a stolen chalice, and a old lady who loves her soap operas, that all get resolved neatly at the end. Despite the subtitle, if you are looking for real suspense, you won't find it here.

This is a sweet Christmas mystery, actually a double mystery. It's charming with the innocence of the children in the after-school program as they prepare their Christmas pageant. There's tension and sadness in hearing about the life of a concert violinist's internal strife and then the bad guys seem to have no redeeming qualities. What more could you hope for...redemption? Isn't that the perfect Christmas idea?! I do so enjoy these Christmas mysteries of Mary Higgins Clark.

Rating: 2.5 of 5

A sweet holiday tale that may prove too predictable and lighthearted for hardcore fans of the thriller-mystery genre or Higgins Clark’s previous novels.

What I Liked Most

All Through the Night had a solid beginning and ending; there were questions for which I wanted answers. I’ll admit I even teared up a bit at the end. There was a positive vibe that warmed my heart which, as a Christmas story, it was probably meant to do.

What I Liked Least

During my teens I read several of Higgins Clark’s novels that I borrowed from my mom’s bookshelf. Those Higgins Clark novels were suspenseful, often involving a murder mystery, and usually featured a strong female lead.

All Through the Night lacked suspense and a strong mystery. show more It was too sugary for my taste. The mystery wasn’t really a mystery. The coincidences seemed way too thin to believe. And the connections Alvirah made in the story would, in the real world, have to be the result of psychic abilities, or some serious obsessing. I had to consciously suspend disbelief whenever Alvirah “solved” something because it was all just so darn easy. Sure, there was mild conflict but I didn’t believe anyone was in real danger; the overall tone felt like everything would work out fine for everyone anyway.

Final Thoughts

All Through the Night is a good selection for anyone, any age, who wants a quick and easy read filled with Christmas spirit. Remember, don’t expect anything thought-provoking or suspenseful, just light reading that’ll leave you with a serious case of the warm ‘n fuzzies.

From my review on Unleash the Flying Monkeys! show less

A young unmarried woman leaves her newborn baby on the rectory doorstep of a church on Manhattan's Upper West Side. At that same moment, inside the church, a young man is in the process of stealing a treasured artifact - a chalice adorned with a single star-shaped diamond. Both the infant and the chalice subsequently disappear.

Seven years later, a few weeks before Christmas - lottery winner turned amateur sleuth - Alvirah Meehan and her husband Willy, are busy helping Willy's sister Cordelia - a nun who runs a thrift store that doubles as an after-school shelter for the neighborhood kids - prepare for the upcoming Christmas pageant. However, the shelter's future is threatened when the city condemns the building for that use. Then it is show more further jeopardized when the nearby brownstone to which the shelter was to be moved turns out to have been willed to a young couple who were already tenants in the building.

Convinced that something suspicious is going on, Alvirah refuses to believe that the will is genuine. She sets out to prove the couple are con artists. Soon she is involved with the mystery of the stolen chalice and child.

While this was certainly a good story and I enjoyed reading it; I'm not entirely sure what grade to give it. In my opinion, the mystery was perhaps a little simplistic, and the plot seemed slightly hurried - at least to me. I would have preferred it if this story had been slightly longer, so that the plot could be better developed and the characters better drawn and more believable. Overall, I give this book a B+! show less

This is a fantastic read. Short, but one of her best. Two sub-plots that do not hinder the other, tied together by a little girl named Star. The whole setting is easy to believe, so you can easily let yourself flow with the story. And it does flow; you will not wish to put it down. There are a couple things that are just too convient. But I guess you would need a much longer book to fit everything in. A good read for Christmas.

A desperate young unmarried woman leaves her newborn on the rectory doorstep as the church is robbed. Both the child and a chalice disappear. Seven years later a shelter for neighborhood children is threatened and Elvira and Willy set out to help.

FROM AMAZON: All of Alvirah's deductive powers and Willy's world-class common sense are called upon as the two stumble into a Christmas mystery. A woman abandons her newborn at a Manhattan church. Simultaneously, a thief is absconding with a treasured artifact, a chalice adorned with a star-shaped diamond. To elude police, he grabs the stroller and disappears. Seven years later, the mother returns to the scene and finds Alvirah and Willy helping neighborhood kids prepare for a Christmas pageant show more at an after-school shelter. Soon the savvy sleuths set out to solve the puzzle of the missing child and chalice—and to unmask scam artists threatening to shut down the shelter. show less

Not up to her usual standards. The story was nice but a little too simple and easy to guess what was next. Abandoned child, amateur sleuth, thief with a conscience.