Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
From Mary Higgins Clark, America's best-selling Queen of Suspense, comes a dark and chilling story of murder, and its effects years later on the man convicted of the crime and the woman who helped convict him. It is a novel that takes the reader to the heights of suspense while exploring the depths of the criminal mind. * Ellie Cavanaugh was only seven years old when her fifteen-year-old sister, Andrea, was murdered near their home in Oldham-on-the-Hudson, a rural village in New York's Westchester County. There were three suspects: Rob Westerfield, nineteen-year-old scion of a wealthy, prominent family, whom Andrea has been secretly dating; Paul Stroebel, a sixteen-year-old schoolmate, who had a crush on Andrea; and Will Nebels, a local handyman in his forties. It was Ellie who had led her parents to a hideout in which Andrea's body was found -- a secret hideaway in which she met her friends. And it was Ellie who was blamed by her parents for her sister's death for not telling them about this place the night Andrea was missing. It was also Ellie's testimony that led to the conviction of the man she was firmly convinced was the killer. Steadfastly denying his guilt, he spent the next twenty-two years in prison. When he comes up for parole, Ellie, now an investigative reporter for an Atlanta newspaper, protests his release. Nonetheless, the convicted killer is set free and returns to Oldham. Determined to thwart his attempts to whitewash his reputation, Ellie also returns to Oldham, intent on creating a Website and writing a book that will conclusively prove his guilt. As she delves deeper into her research, however, she uncovers horrifying and heretofore unknownfacts that shed new light on her sister's murder. With each discovery, she comes closer to a confrontation with a desperate killer. Gripping and relentlessly compelling, Daddy's Little Girl, a portrayal of a family shattered by crime, reflects Mary Higgins Clark's uncanny insight into the twisted mind of a killer and is further evidence of why she is America's favorite author of suspense.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
At the parole hearing for Donald Waring, Trish Duncan begins to wonder whether he was wrongly convicted of killing her sister 20 years ago. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
Writing in the first person a rarity for this veteran author has inspired and energized Clark. Her 21st novel of intrigue is her best in years, a tightly woven, emotionally potent tale of suspense and revenge. Clark's new heroine is Atlanta investigative journalist Ellie Cavanaugh, who was seven when her sister, Andrea, 15, was beaten to death by 20-year-old Rob Westerfield, scion of the wealthiest family in a small Westchester town. Now Westerfield is up for parole, so Ellie, now 30, returns home to speak out against him. When Westerfield is released, Ellie begins to write a book aimed at re-proving his guilt. Digging for evidence, she uncovers clues that Westerfield may have committed another murder as a youth, but that digging also enrages the Westerfields and other town members who think the man was railroaded. Before long, Ellie's life is in danger, as someone breaks into the house she's staying in, then later sets fire to it, nearly killing her, and as Westerfield himself begins to shadow her moves. What makes this novel work isn't only the considerable tension Clark teases from Ellie's precarious position, but the thoughtful backgrounding to the action. Ellie is cast as a lonely woman, without a lover and estranged from her father and half-brother: will she accept one or the other into her guarded life?; and she carries a heavy load of guilt for her sister's death, wondering at times if she is blinded by her thirst for vengeance. With its textured plot, well-sketched secondary characters, strong pacing and appealing heroine, this is Clark at her most winning. (On sale, Apr. 16) Forecast: One million first printing; main selection of the Literary Guild and BOMC, the Doubleday Book Club and Doubleday Large Print, and the Mystery Guild; all that, plus a fabulous green-toned jacket featuring a blood-stained locket on the front and a terrific photo of Clark on the back, add up to #1 with a bullet. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Clark's latest thriller deviates from her usual, by-the-book whodunit by revealing the villain early on. Rob Westerfield, a rich, sociopath, beat Andrea Cavanaugh to death when he was only 19. Andrea's family is torn apart--her parents divorce, and her younger sister, Ellie, becomes obsessed with the murder and Westerfield's guilt. When, 23 years after the murder, Westerfield is up for parole, Ellie, now an investigative reporter, vehemently opposes it. Rob has never admitted his guilt, and now his family has found a witness who says someone else committed the murder. Will Nebels, a local handyman, points the finger at Paulie Stroebel, a sweet but slow man who had a crush on Andrea. Ellie is incensed; she is totally convinced of Westerfield's guilt and knows that this new witness is merely a ploy to prevent Rob's grandmother from disinheriting him. Ellie begins an investigation to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Westerfield is guilty. Though many people are afraid to talk to her because of the Westerfields' clout, Ellie does manage to find a few people who will tell her about Rob's cruel behavior prior to Andrea's murder. She is also shocked to uncover what may be another murder. But as Ellie probes more deeply into Rob's past, enemies dog her, burning the apartment she's staying in and even threatening her life. A solid if unremarkable page-turner. Kristine Huntley.
Kirkus Book Review
Clark's latest damsel-in-distress is a former child witness set against her teenage sister's convicted killer when he comes up for parole 23 years later. "Ellie is such a good kid. She's not a snitch," Andrea Cavanaugh told her friends when she brought her seven-year-old sister to the garage on the Westerfield estate they used as a hideout. The good kid's failure to tell her parents about the hideout when Andrea vanished on the way home from a friend's may have meant the difference between finding her alive or dead. Years later, the girls' mother has died of alcoholism, the father, who adored Andrea but ignored Ellie, has retreated into a second marriage, and Ellie has turned into an investigative reporter who wants nothing to do with him. But the news that Rob Westerfield, the spoiled rich kid her tearful testimony helped convict, is favored for parole brings her back from Atlanta to Westchester, where she attacks his family and their team of legal eagles with everything she's got, from a placard she carries at the Ossining train station offering her phone number to recently released prisoners with anything damaging to say about Rob to a Web site on which she posts each new discovery in her case against him. Even after 23 years, there are plenty of discoveries-the reasons Rob was dismissed from an exclusive prep school, the rumors that Andrea wasn't his first victim, the family's determined attempt to blame the crime on Andrea's special-needs classmate Paulie Stroebel-and each of them brings Ellie closer to long-anticipated danger. Less mystery, more raw pain, and a tough-cookie heroine who tells her own story make this a real departure for Clark (On the Street Where You Live, 2001, etc.), and one that carries more conviction than her usual glossy fantasies. First printing of 1,000,000; Literary Guild/Mystery Guild selection; author tour