Reviews provided by Syndetics
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.
Publishers 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
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
Kirkus Book Review
A century and more after some fiend has strangled three young women in a seaside town, hes 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 Madelines skeleton lying just beneath an even more gruesome discoverythe body of Martha Lawrence, missing for over four years, and buried in the same clandestine grave clutching Madelines finger bone in her dead hand. In fact, the situation is considerably more dire than Emily realizes, since Marthas killer, whos been reenacting the 19th-century murderers 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 Swains 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 everfrom dotty dot-com millionaire Eric Bailey to father-hating lawyer Will Stafford to overextended restaurateur Bob Frieze to blackmailed ex-college president Clayton Wilcoxbut Clark loyalists, though they may be thrown offstride by the elevated body count, wont be fooled for a minute. Along with a pretty transparent killer, fans will have to make allowances for an anniversary calendar of crime that wont stand close scrutiny and a damsel whose distress is considerably more interesting than she is. As if they cared.