You belong to me - Mary Higgins Clark

Book: You belong to me
Author: Mary Higgins Clark
Publication Date: 1998

I do not have any regret that I have joined Mary Higgins Clark reading contest.

'Unputdownable until you finish it'.

You belong to me was a usual MHC book. But the writing was not winding but straight and stellar that you could put it down only after finishing it.

The story is about a killer who stalks beautiful and lone women and murders them.  The killings remained subdued until Dr Susan Chandler, an assistant district attorney turned psychologist churns it out through her popular radio show ' Ask Susan'. 

She invites Dr Donald Richards, another psychiatrist to her talk show to discuss his book ' Vanishing women' and the safety issues encountered by lonesome women. In the process, she discusses Regina Clausen who had vanished mysteriously about three years ago. Thus ensues many other killings.

When you thoroughly scrutinize the book, it offers nothing new. One of the criticisms I came across about this book was that MHC was interested in successful women who undertake rich cruises, falls for rich men.  Absolutely true regarding this book. But what matters finally is whether you have enjoyed the process of reading. If you think that you have wasted your three and half hours, then it is a sheer waste of time. 

But for me, it was the other way round. It was an easy read and enjoyed it.

Post Mortem by Patricia Cornwell

You will like Patricia Cornwell, if you have keen eyes of every meticulous forensic details. Ms Cornwell introduces Dr Kay Scarpetta  in her first published novel ' Post Mortem'. Every night in Richmond has become nightmarish as women were brutally murdered and strangled to death. When the story opens Dr Scarpetta was woken up from her sleep by Sergeant Marino that a fourth case of strangling was reported. The murderer was leaving clues. But they could not trace him. Though she scrutinises the cases with the unerring eyes, bottlenecks are sown on his way as there was an attempt to sabotage the investigation from within. It becomes all the more precarious when her life was in danger.

would like to finish reading these books

would like to finish reading these books within three months. Got good reviews of these books from http://riversihaveknown.com/jonathan-strange-mr-norrell-by-susannah-clarke-a-review/. Her reviews are great.

Mystery writer Barbara Mertz dies at 85

NEW YORK – Barbara Mertz, a best-selling mystery writer who wrote dozens of novels under two pen names, has died. She was 85.

Mertz died Thursday morning at her home, in Frederick, Maryland, her daughter Elizabeth told her publisher HarperCollins.

Mertz wrote more than 35 mysteries under the name Elizabeth Peters, including her most popular series about a daring Victorian archaeologist named Amelia Peabody. She also wrote 29 suspense novels under the pen name Barbara Michaels, and under her own name, she wrote nonfiction books about ancient Egypt.

Born Barbara Louise Gross, Mertz grew up in small-town Illinois during the Depression and went to the University of Chicago on scholarship, where she wrote on her website, “I was supposed to be preparing myself to teach — a nice, sensible career for a woman.”

But her true love was archaeology, and she soon found herself drawn to the department of Egyptology. She received a Ph.D. at the age of 23.

For more, please read http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/118967/mystery-writer-barbara-mertz-dies-at-85

Mystery Writers

They are my newly found mystery writers 

Patricia Cornwell

Ruth Rendell

Tami Hoag

Tess Gerritsen

Last Voyage of the Valentina, Santa Montefiore

Review from Good reads

Exotically beautiful but desperately unhappy, Alba lives on a houseboat on the Thames, where she enjoys a life of leisure and entertains an endless and unfulfilling succession of lovers. But then she discovers a portrait of her dead mother, Valentina -- a woman she'd hardly known, whose story has been kept from her by her still grieving father. Determined to learn the truth about Valentina, Alba returns to the olive groves of the Amalfi coast of Italy. There she uncovers a mysterious tale of decadence, deception, murder, and betrayal involving partisans and Nazis, peasants and counts. Alba's journey leads her not only to the truth of her mother's hidden past but to the possibility of happiness in her own future.

" I like lemons and arum lilies, the smell of the dawn and the mystery of the night. I like to dance. I wanted to be a dancer as a little girl. I`m frightened of being alone. I`m frightened of being no one. Of not mattering. The moon fascinates me; I could sit all night just staring up at it and wondeng. She makes me feel safe. I hate this war, but I love it for having brought you to me. I`m afraid of loving too much. Of being hurt. Of living my life in pain and suffering for loving someone I am unable to have. I`m frightened too of death, of nothingness. Of dying, and finding that there isn't a God. Of my soul wandering in a terrible limbo that is neither life nor death. My favorite color is purple. My favorite stone a diamond. I would like to wear a necklace of the finest diamonds just to sparkle for the night, to know what it feels to be a lady. My favorite part of the world is the sea. My favorite man is you."

Santa Montefiore, Last Voyage of the Valentina