Stillwatch

Things I Learned: Nothing I can think of ...

Comments: Second book in a week with a religious fantatic at its center. Dan Brown's religious fanatic was easier to understand. This one's motives were murkier. I don't really know where the religiosity came from. Also it was very sensationalistic in its portrayal of a HOMICIDAL MANIAC!!! Yes, she actually used those words. Apparently everyone who commits murder has to be insane, with murky motives - no one is simply a cold-blooded killer. Are all killers crazy and does that make all crazy people killers? I have to wonder if this is the general public's view of folks with a psychiatric diagnosis - that we're all potential ax murderers. But this book was written back in 1984, so hopefully show more people are more enlightened these days.

That aside, it was a page-turning read. The girl gets her guy in the end. MHC earned her title, "Queen of Suspense." show less

Stillwatch has too many murderers and murders, too many family secrets, and too many coincidences to be plausible. The plot is elaborate and confusing. It features a local TV interviewer Pat Traymore, who arrives back in Apple Junction, the Virginia town where she was born. She is scheduled to interview the local Senator, Abigail Jennings, who is on the verge of being selected as Vice President of the US (after resignation of the incumbent). Pat has a history with the town -- when she was a toddler, bearing the name "Kerry", her father (Dean, a senator, also known as "Billy") supposedly murdered her mother and then killed himself. Little Kerry had been rescued by a local man named Arthur Stevens, who figures in the story later. Pat/ show more Kerry moves into her former house, where the crime occurred, and begins to recall events that are not compatible with the official story.

Abigail has long had an assistant, Toby Gorgone, who murders people for the sake of Abigail's political career. Among his past crimes was sabotage of a small airplane carrying Abigail's husband Willard (on whom Abigail was cheating), causing the death of Willard and the pilot George Graney. The pilot's widow Catherine Graney is demanding that Abigail publicly exonerate her husband for Willard's death, and spotting the danger, Toby murders her while she's out walking the dog: "In the instant before she died, Catherine Graney finally understood what had happened that long ago day. Toby now plans to murder Pat Traymore, because her media piece makes Abigail look bad and threatens to reveal Abigail's affair with Pat's dead father.

Meanwhile, another subplot involves a woman named Eleanor who'd once worked for Abigail Jennings, and who'd been imprisoned years earlier for stealing campaign cash. She had been framed for the crime by Toby Gorgone. Having escaped from prison years ago, she's been living under the name "Glory" and under the protection of Arthur Stevens (remember him?), also known to her as "Father". Arthur/ Father, as it turns out, is both a serial killer and a religious nut who murders patients at nursing homes when he decides they'd be better off dead.

Pat eventually figures out what really happened that fateful night when her parents died; her father, Dean/ Billy, had been having an affair with Abigail without their spouses knowing, and upon discovering it, Pat's mother killed herself. Toby, happening on the scene, had taken the opportunity to kill Dean to protect Abigail's career, making it look like a murder - suicide. Now he plans to kill Pat to keep the secrets secret, meaning he'd be the murderer of both father and daughter. The implausible culmination comes when two different serial murderers -- Toby and Arthur -- arrive independently at the same location (Pat's home) to kill the same woman (Pat/ Kerry)-- although for entirely different reasons -- one to protect Abigail, the other to protect Elaine. Of course among the coincidences is that Toby is seeking to kill Elaine, in the very same house where he killed her father, and Arthur is now seeking to kill Elaine, whom unbeknownst to him is the same person he rescued as a child, again in the very same house (and . clearly he doesn't recognize her as the same person as the child he saved). In any case, Arthur immobilizes Pat and sets the house on fire, and Toby then incapacitates Arthur to implicate him in the murder -- a case of one serial killer murdering another. Abigail is drawn to the scene, and demands that Toby rush into the fire to rescue Pat, and he tries but dies -- so now, the two serial killers have killed each other. But Pat's boyfriend Sam, also a Senator, arrives on the scene just in time and rescues her. So, Abigail's shot at the VP slot is ruined, and the few who are alive by the end of the book -- notably Pat and Sam -- presumably live happily ever after. Having one of them die by a serial killer at this point would presumably be too improbable even for Ms. Mary Higgins Clark.

The above may be rather hard to follow, but it's easier than the version given in the abridged version of the book. As for the title, "keeping a stillwatch" (we're informed) means "that if you believe something is wrong you keep a vigil". The connection with the book itself is tenuous and the reader will likely overlook it, as did I. In sum, I can't much recommend this book, and I've spent entirely too much time trying to reconstruct the plot. Other readers clearly have enjoyed it however. Perhaps the stack of bodies and subplots kept their juices flowing for long enough to find out who was doing what to whom and why. Hopefully, the above summary will be helpful to anyone who gets lost along the way. show less

This is easily one of my favorite Mary Higgins Clark books. I love the characters, I love the plot, I love the romance.

Pat has a very real personality. She's not overly sweet, or naive, or bitter. She's clearly scared, but she's stubborn, too, and that gets her into some interesting situations. The plot is interesting and realistic. I find in a lot of suspense thrillers that everything is connected no matter how silly, and that was not the case in this one. And the romance was not some mysterious, instantaneous attraction. It felt plausible. It also was not the main focus of the story, so perhaps that's why it felt like a more realistic, slow building romance.

I really love this book. I recommend it to all types and ages!

In Clark’s mystery suspense novel, journalist Pat Traymore moved to Washington to produce a TV series surrounding Senator Abigail Jennings, destined to be the first woman vice president of the United States. Teaming with Congressman Sam Kingsley, Pat delves into the senator’s background only to find dark secrets that could easily destroy her up-and-coming career. But more sinister are the connections Pat stumbles across that appear to be connected to her own childhood nightmare.

Chilling…you can’t put it down until the last page.

A GRIPPING THRILLER ABOUT A TELEVISION JOURNALIST UNCOVERING DARK SECRETS WITHIN THE U.S. SENATE WHILE INVESTIGATING A FRIEND'S MURDER.

Top investigative journalist Pat Traymore is in Washington, finding out all she can about the woman tipped to become the first female Vice-President. But she is also trying to exorcise painful childhood memories by visiting her old family home.

good mystery always draws you in

Top investigative journalist Pat Traymore is in Washington, finding out all she can about the woman tipped to become the first female Vice-President. But she is also trying to exorcise painful childhood memories by visiting her old family home.