On the street where you live

Mary Higgins Clark

eAudio - 2001

In the gripping new novel from America's Queen of Suspense, a young woman is haunted by two murders that are closely linked -- despite the one hundred and ten years that separate them. Following the acrimonious breakup of her marriage and the searing experience of being pursued by an obsessed stalker, criminal defense attorney Emily Graham accepts an offer to leave Albany and work in a major law firm in Manhattan. Feeling a need for roots, she buys her ancestral home, a restored Victorian house in the historic New Jersey seaside resort town of Spring Lake. Her family had sold the house in 1892, after one of Emily's forebears, Madeline Shapley, then still a young girl, disappeared. Now, more than a century later, as the house is be...ing renovated and the backyard excavated for a pool, the skeleton of a young woman is found. She is identified as Martha Lawrence, who had disappeared from Spring Lake over four year ago. Within her skeletal hand is the finger bone of another woman with a ring still on it -- a Shapley family heirloom. In seeking to find the link between her family's past and the recent murder, Emily becomes a threat to a devious and seductive killer, who has chosen her as the next victim.

Saved in:
Subjects
Genres
Mystery fiction
Published
[United States] : Simon & Schuster Audio 2001.
Language
English
Corporate Author
hoopla digital
Main Author
Mary Higgins Clark (-)
Corporate Author
hoopla digital (-)
Other Authors
Jan Maxwell (-)
Edition
Abridged
Online Access
Instantly available on hoopla.
Cover image
Physical Description
1 online resource (1 audio file (4hr., 30 min.)) : digital
Format
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
ISBN
9780743544511
Access
AVAILABLE FOR USE ONLY BY IOWA CITY AND RESIDENTS OF THE CONTRACTING GOVERNMENTS OF JOHNSON COUNTY, UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, HILLS, AND LONE TREE (IA).
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Fleeing a bad marriage and a vicious stalker, Emily Graham arrives in Spring Lake, where she has purchased a house owned by her ancestors. But a mystery awaits her there: back in the 1890s, three girls, including Emily's distant relative, Madeline, were murdered in a space of five years. Now there seems to be a copycat killer who is following the pattern established by the 1890s murderer. Two girls, Martha and Carla, have disappeared over the past four years, and their bodies have never been found. When the remains of Martha, along with those of Emily's ancestor, are found in Emily's backyard, the police begin to hunt for the copycat killer, while Emily tries to solve the 1890s mystery. Suddenly the secrets of seemingly respectable Spring Lake citizens come to light, and the police find more than one likely suspect. The tension is heightened when several potential witnesses are murdered. Meanwhile, Emily has a major problem of her own to deal with: it turns out that the man convicted of stalking her was innocent; the stalker is still at large and now harassing her in Spring Lake. To add to her troubles, the killer has already chosen his final victim: Emily. Like all of Clark's novels, this one is a suspenseful page-turner that will delight her many fans. --Kristine Huntley

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Is a reincarnated serial killer at work in a New Jersey resort town more than a century after he first drew blood? That's the catchy premise that supports Clark's 24th book. In the 1890s, three young women in the upscale seaside village of Spring Lake died at the hands of an unidentified killer. In the present day, two young women have disappeared from town and their killer, whose first-person ruminations vein the third-person narrative, is preparing to strike again. His final target will be Emily Graham, an ambitious young attorney just moved to Spring Lake from upstate New York, where she'd been victimized by a stalker. Emily is a typical Clark heroine, bright and beautiful, and the friends she makes and suspects she meets in Spring Lake are her equal in stereotype, among them a former college president with a dread secret; a failed, aging restaurateur with a much younger wife; and a hunky real-estate agent. Emily's dream of a new start in the house once owned by her ancestor the first victim of the killer of yore sours when the body of a present-day victim is found buried on her land along with remains of her murdered ancestor. The dream curdles further when more bodies turn up and Emily's upstate stalker reappears. This is a plot-driven novel, with Clark's story mechanics at their peak of complexity, clever and tricky. There's some nifty interplay between past and present via diaries and old books, some modest suspense, and a few genuine surprises, including the identity of both the stalker and the killer. Clark's prose ambles as usual, but it takes readers where they want to go deep into an old-fashioned tale of a damsel in delicious distress. The first printing is one million; that, and Clark's popularity, will be enough to push this title to #1. (Apr. 17) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Strange bedfellows: After Emily buys back the family's seaside house, the skeleton of a great-aunt who disappeared decades ago is unearthed in the backyard. And next to it is the body of a young woman only recently deceased. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A century and more after some fiend has strangled three young women in a seaside town, he’s back, or somebody just like him is, in the latest damsel-in-distresser from Clark (Before I Say Good-Bye, 2000, etc.). Well-heeled attorney Emily Graham, great-great-grandniece of Madeline Shapley, the first fin-de-siècle victim, has just concluded arrangements to purchase the Shapley home in upscale Spring Lake, New Jersey, when the men excavating her yard for a swimming pool make the grisly discovery of Madeline’s skeleton lying just beneath an even more gruesome discovery—the body of Martha Lawrence, missing for over four years, and buried in the same clandestine grave clutching Madeline’s finger bone in her dead hand. In fact, the situation is considerably more dire than Emily realizes, since Martha’s killer, who’s been reenacting the 19th-century murderer’s PG-rated atrocities ever since coming across his providential diary, has already murdered a second victim and plans to make Emily his third on March 31, the anniversary of Ellen Swain’s death. Could he be a reincarnation of the original killer? The police decide to ask psychologist Lillian Madden, who often uses hypnotism to awaken her clients’ memories of earlier lives. The answer comes promptly when the murderer interrupts his surveillance of Emily to strangle Dr. Madden. The list of male suspects harboring suspicious secrets runs as generous a gamut as ever—from dotty dot-com millionaire Eric Bailey to father-hating lawyer Will Stafford to overextended restaurateur Bob Frieze to blackmailed ex-college president Clayton Wilcox—but Clark loyalists, though they may be thrown offstride by the elevated body count, won’t be fooled for a minute. Along with a pretty transparent killer, fans will have to make allowances for an anniversary calendar of crime that won’t stand close scrutiny and a damsel whose distress is considerably more interesting than she is. As if they cared.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

On the Street Where you Live one ________________ HE TURNED ONTO THE BOARDWALK and felt the full impact of the stinging blast from the ocean. Observing the shifting clouds, he decided it wouldn't be surprising if they had a snow flurry later on, even though tomorrow was the first day of spring. It had been a long winter, and everyone said how much they were looking forward to the warm weather ahead. He wasn't. He enjoyed Spring Lake best once late autumn set in. By then the summer people had closed their houses, not appearing even for weekends. He was chagrined, though, that with each passing year more and more people were selling their winter homes and settling here permanently. They had decided it was worth the seventy-mile commute into New York so that they could begin and end the day in this quietly beautiful New Jersey seaside community. Spring Lake, with its Victorian houses that appeared unchanged from the way they had been in the 1890s, was worth the inconvenience of the trip, they explained. Spring Lake, with the fresh, bracing scent of the ocean always present, revived the soul, they agreed. Spring Lake, with its two-mile boardwalk, where one could revel in the silvery magnificence of the Atlantic, was a treasure, they pointed out. All of these people shared so much--the summer visitors, the permanent dwellers--but none of them shared his secrets. He could stroll down Hayes Avenue and visualize Madeline Shapley as she had been in late afternoon on September 7, 1891, seated on the wicker sofa on the wraparound porch of her home, her wide-brimmed bonnet beside her. She had been nineteen years old then, brown-eyed, with dark brown hair, sedately beautiful in her starched white linen dress. Only he knew why she had had to die an hour later. St. Hilda Avenue, shaded with heavy oaks that had been mere saplings on August 5, 1893, when eighteen-year-old Letitia Gregg had failed to return home, brought other visions. She had been so frightened. Unlike Madeline, who had fought for her life, Letitia had begged for mercy. The last one of the trio had been Ellen Swain, small and quiet, but far too inquisitive, far too anxious to document the last hours of Letitia's life. And because of her curiosity, on March 31, 1896, she had followed her friend to the grave. He knew every detail, every nuance of what had happened to her and to the others. He had found the diary during one of those cold, rainy spells that sometimes occur in summer. Bored, he'd wandered into the old carriage house, which served as a garage. He climbed the rickety steps to the stuffy, dusty loft, and for lack of something better to do, began rummaging through the boxes he found there. The first one was filled with utterly useless odds and ends: rusty old lamps; faded, outdated clothing; pots and pans and a scrub board; chipped vanity sets, the glass on the mirrors cracked or blurred. They all were the sorts of items one shoves out of sight with the intention of fixing or giving away, and then forgets altogether. Another box held thick albums, the pages crumbling, filled with pictures of stiffly posed, stern-faced people refusing to share their emotions with the camera. A third contained books, dusty, swollen from humidity, the type faded. He'd always been a reader, but even though only fourteen at the time, he could glance through these titles and dismiss them. No hidden masterpieces in the lot. A dozen more boxes proved to be filled with equally worthless junk. In the process of throwing everything back into the boxes, he came across a rotted leather binder that had been hidden in what looked like another photo album. He opened it and found it stuffed with pages, every one of them covered with writing. The first entry was dated, September 7, 1891. It began with the words "Madeline is dead by my hand." He had taken the diary and told no one about it. Over the years, he'd read from it almost daily, until it became an integral part of his own memory. Along the way, he realized he had become one with the author, sharing his sense of supremacy over his victims, chuckling at his playacting as he grieved with the grieving. What began as a fascination gradually grew to an absolute obsession, a need to relive the diary writer's journey of death on his own. Vicarious sharing was no longer enough. Four and a half years ago he had taken the first life. It was twenty-one-year-old Martha's fate that she had been present at the annual end-of-summer party her grandparents gave. The Lawrences were a prominent, long-established Spring Lake family. He was at the festive gathering and met her there. The next day, September 7th, she left for an early morning jog on the boardwalk. She never returned home. Now, over four years later, the investigation into her disappearance was still ongoing. At a recent gathering, the prosecutor of Monmouth County had vowed there would be no diminution in the effort to learn the truth about what had happened to Martha Lawrence. Listening to the empty vows, he chuckled at the thought. How he enjoyed participating in the somber discussions about Martha that came up from time to time over the dinner table. I could tell you all about it, every detail, he said to himself, and I could tell you about Carla Harper too. Two years ago he had been strolling past the Warren Hotel and noticed her coming down the steps. Like Madeline, as described in the diary, she had been wearing a white dress, although hers was barely a slip, sleeveless, clinging, revealing every inch of her slender young body. He began following her. When she disappeared three days later, everyone believed Carla had been accosted on the trip home to Philadelphia. Not even the prosecutor, so determined to solve the mystery of Martha's disappearance, suspected that Carla had never left Spring Lake. Relishing the thought of his omniscience, he had lightheartedly joined the late afternoon strollers on the boardwalk and exchanged pleasantries with several good friends he met along the way, agreeing that winter was insisting on giving them one more blast on its way out. But even as he bantered with them, he could feel the need stirring within him, the need to complete his trio of present-day victims. The final anniversary was coming up, and he had yet to choose her. The word in town was that Emily Graham, the purchaser of the Shapley house, as it was still known, was a descendant of the original owners. He had looked her up on the Internet. Thirty-two years old, divorced, a criminal defense attorney. She had come into money after she was given stock by the grateful owner of a fledgling wireless company whom she'd successfully defended pro bono. When the stock went public and she was able to sell it, she made a fortune. He learned that Graham had been stalked by the son of a murder victim after she won an acquittal for the accused killer. The son, protesting his innocence, was now in a psychiatric facility. Interesting. More interesting still, Emily bore a striking resemblance to the picture he'd seen of her great-great-grandaunt, Madeline Shapley. She had the same wide brown eyes and long, full eyelashes. The same midnight-brown hair with hints of auburn. The same lovely mouth. The same tall, slender body. There were differences, of course. Madeline had been innocent, trusting, unworldly, a romantic. Emily Graham was obviously a sophisticated and smart woman. She would be more of a challenge than the others, but then again, that made her so much more interesting. Maybe she was the one destined to complete his special trio? There was an orderliness, a rightness to the prospect that sent a shiver of pleasure through him. Excerpted from On the Street Where You Live 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.