On the Street Where you Live (38 page)

“Loves Music, Loves to Dance
revolves around a serial killer who uses personal ads to entice his victims.
Erin Kelly, a talented young jewelry designer and her best friend, Darcy Scott, a decorator, have been dating men through personal ads. They were helping a friend, a television producer, to research a documentary on the kinds of people who place and answer personal ads and their experiences. Darcy had persuaded the reluctant Erin to participate. One day, Erin is missing. Soon after, her body is found on an abandoned Manhattan pier. On one foot is her own shoe, on the other a high-heeled dancing slipper. Guilt-stricken over Erin's death, Darcy decides to meet the men Erin dated, to find her killer. What Darcy does not realize, what she cannot know until it is too late, is that she has been targeted as the killer's next victim.

“Loves Music, Loves to Dance
was made into a television film by PAX-TV and premiered in the United States on November 25, 2001.”

• All Around the Town
deals with a young woman with multiple personalities who is accused of murder. How did you get the idea for this book?

“It emanated from the request for an autograph. A friend of my daughter Carol's came to visit, an art therapist from the National Center for Treatment of Dissociative Disorders in Denver, specializing in the treatment of multiple personality disorder. She wanted me to sign a book for one of her patients. When I asked for the name, she hesitated and said: ‘Now which one of her personalities reads your books?' This aroused my interest and led to my writing this book.

“Laurie Kenyon, the main protagonist in
All
Around the Town,
a twenty-one-year-old college senior, is accused of murdering her English professor, Allan Grant. When he is found stabbed to death, her fingerprints are everywhere—on the door, on the curtain, on the knife. Arraigned on a murder charge, Laurie has no memory of the crime. Traumatized by abuse she suffered after she was kidnapped at the age of four and held for two years, she has developed multiple personalities. Laurie, the host personality, does not know that others co-exist with her, nor is she aware that one of her alternates, Leona, has been writing Allan Grant crazed love letters and secretly entering his home.

“Bic Hawkins, Laurie's abductor, an unsavory drifter, had been scratching out a living singing in taverns and as a fundamentalist preacher. Now he has become a celebrated television evangelist. Before releasing her, Bic had threatened six-year-old Laurie with death if she ever talked about what he had done to her and, terrified, she erased the experience from her mind.

“Attorney Sarah Kenyon has quit her job as assistant prosecutor to defend her younger sister. Her strategy is to prove that Laurie's childhood trauma was the direct cause of Allan Grant's murder. Sarah brings in Dr. Justin Donnelly, a specialist in the treatment of multiple personalities, to unlock the unbearable memories she has been suppressing. As her multiple personalities emerge in therapy and the date for her trial approaches, her fate hangs on the question: If one of her alternate personalities perpetrated Allan Grant's murder, is she to be held accountable?”

• 
What is the theme of your novel
I'll Be Seeing You?

“The ‘what if' of in-vitro fertilization and human cloning.

“In
I'll Be Seeing You,
Meghan Collins, a television news reporter, is covering a story in the emergency room of a large metropolitan hospital when an unidentified stabbing victim is brought in. Attempts to revive her fail. When Meghan looks at the dead girl's face, she recoils in horror—she is looking at a mirror image of her own. As she attempts to learn the identity of the dead girl, her search becomes linked to a story she is doing at the Manning Clinic.

“The Manning Clinic, an assisted reproduction facility, has a remarkably high success rate in helping childless women conceive through in-vitro fertilization. Now they have ventured into cloning embryos, and a woman is about to deliver the identical twin of her three-year-old son. At first, the director, Dr. George Manning, welcomes the idea of television coverage, but bars Meghan when Dr. Helene Petrovic, embryologist in charge of the laboratory, abruptly quits. He refuses Meghan further access to the clinic. That evening, Helene Petrovic's body is found—she has been shot to death. Then, a scandal erupts at the Manning Clinic.

“Petrovic is linked to Meghan's father, Edwin Collins, whose executive search firm had placed her in the lab. For nearly a year, Collins had been missing and presumed dead. Now suspicion arises about his disappearance. Meghan is sure that Petrovic's death is the key to learning the truth about her father, the dead girl and the Manning Clinic.”

• Remember Me,
a psychological thriller, is set on Cape Cod. What motivated you to choose this locale?

“The idea originated twenty years ago, when I visited a bookstore on the Cape, where I have a home, and came across a book on its legends and history. At that time, the idea for a novel titled
Remember House
first took root in my mind. It became
Remember Me,
in which the main character, Menley, goes to Remember House. I realized that the story of the early settlers, their lifestyles and their homes, would provide a rich historical background for a suspense story in which today and yesterday become inexorably linked.”

• 
Menley, heroine of
Remember Me,
suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. What made you use this as a theme in your novel?

“The medical profession has only recently recognized that a traumatic event can be re-experienced if something triggers the memory of a contributing factor to the trauma: earthquake victims may panic if a subway train rumbles underneath; a woman who has been attacked in an elevator may find it impossible to enter an elevator again.

“In
Remember Me,
Menley drives across an unguarded railroad crossing and a train hits the back of the car, killing her little boy. The sight of the railroad crossing, the sound of a train whistle or the sound of screaming is enough to make her relive that awful moment with the same desperate anxiety and panic she experienced at the time. Menley has never stopped blaming herself for the death of her two-year-old
son Bobby, though she was blameless. In the aftermath, as Menley suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, her marriage to Adam, a highprofile criminal lawyer, starts to fall apart. The birth of their daughter, Hannah, revitalizes their relationship. Seeking tranquillity, Menley and Adam rent Remember House on Cape Cod, where strange things begin to happen. Incidents occur which make Menley relive the horror of the accident and make Adam fear for Hannah's safety.

“Menley and Adam become involved with Scott Covey, a strikingly handsome but impecunious young man, who is suspected of murder when his wealthy young bride of only three months drowns in a storm. Sympathetic to his plight, Menley persuades her husband to take on his case.

“Step by step, they are drawn into a dark and threatening web of events that disrupt this seemingly peaceful town.
Remember Me
builds to a climax, as Menley faces a mounting threat to her sanity—and to her life.”

• 
Your suspense novel
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
has an unusual twist—a plot revolving around plastic surgery. What inspired this theme?

“The idea of using plastic surgery as a theme emanated from a conversation with my longtime editor, Michael Korda. He raised the question ‘What if a plastic surgeon keeps giving the exact same face to a number of women?' I found the idea intriguing.”

• 
What is the plot of
Let Me Call You Sweetheart?

“Kerry McGrath, a young assistant prosecutor,
learns that her ten-year-old daughter, Robin, has been injured in a car accident while out with her father, Kerry's ex-husband, Bob Kinellen. Robin's face has been cut by flying glass and she has to be taken to the hospital. When Kerry arrives there, Robin is in surgery with prominent plastic surgeon Dr. Charles Smith.

“A week later, Kerry is in Dr. Smith's office with Robin, to have her stitches removed. There, Kerry sees a young woman who appears to be in her mid-twenties, a cloud of dark hair framing her face. ‘I know her,' she thought. ‘But from where? That face—I have seen her before.' The woman's name, she finds out, is Barbara Tompkins, a name which means nothing to her. On her next visit to Dr. Smith's office, Kerry sees another woman with the same face. Her name is Pamela Worth—a name also unknown to her.

“Kerry cannot get the face out of her mind and starts having nightmares. In the first, she is in the doctor's waiting room and sees a young woman lying on the floor, a knotted cord twisted around her neck. In the next, sweetheart roses are scattered around her body. Now Kerry knows. The women resembled Suzanne Reardon, the victim in the Sweetheart Murder case.

“Nearly eleven years ago, when Kerry McGrath had just begun work in the county prosecutor's office, Suzanne Reardon had been murdered. Her husband had been convicted of the murder. Was there a connection between the crime and the look-alikes of the victim?

“Kerry decides to probe into the Sweetheart
Murder case, knowing that it may jeopardize her career, but unaware that there is more at stake—her life and that of her daughter, Robin. The story builds to a climax as the murderer targets Kerry and Robin for his next strike.”

• 
You have written two suspense novels with Christmas themes,
Silent Night
and
All Through the Night.
What is
Silent Night
about?

“Catherine Dornan has come to New York with her two sons, ten-year-old Michael and seven-year-old Brian, to be near Tom, her husband, who is lying critically ill in the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. It is Christmas Eve and they are on Fifth Avenue, near Rockefeller Center. Later on, they plan to go to the hospital to give Tom the St. Christopher medal that saved her father's life in World War II by deflecting a bullet. Catherine's mother and little Brian firmly believe that it will make him well. Suddenly, Catherine realizes that her wallet with the St. Christopher medal is missing and that Brian has disappeared.

“Cally Hunter, a woman from the other side of the tracks, is also on Fifth Avenue on Christmas Eve, looking for a man who sells dolls on the street, so she can buy one cheaply for her four-year-old daughter, Gigi. Cally had just served a fifteen-month prison sentence for aiding her brother, a cop killer. When Cally sees Catherine's wallet drop to the sidewalk, she grabs it and makes off. Brian sees what has happened and knows he must retrieve the St. Christopher medal. He follows Cally into the subway, all the way into her dilapidated building in lower Manhattan. As he hovers around Cally's
apartment door, a man comes out and yanks him in. The man is Jimmy Siddons, Cally's brother, who has escaped from prison and has come to get money from Cally.

“Jimmy Siddons abducts Brian, as traveling with a little boy at Christmas is the ideal camouflage for his planned escape to Canada in a stolen car. The story reaches its climax when Jimmy realizes he is being followed and Brian knows that Jimmy is about to kill him. Brian decides to take action. He knows he has a mission to fulfill—to bring the St. Christopher medal to his father.”

• 
Tell us about
All Through the Night.

“Breaking a phony will, retrieving a bishop's stolen chalice and helping a young woman search for her abandoned child are the challenges facing Alvirah Meehan, former cleaning woman and lottery winner turned amateur sleuth and her husband, Willy.

“Alvirah and Willy are helping Sister Cordelia prepare a Christmas pageant at Home Base, an after-school center for needy children on New York's Upper West Side. A cloud looms over the festivities—Home Base is about to be shut down by the city and a promised new location is in jeopardy. A townhouse owned by Bessie Durkin Maher, an elderly widow, had been left to her sister Kate, who planned to donate it to Home Base. But after Bessie's funeral, the couple renting the top-floor apartment produce a new will, declaring them as sole heirs.

“Among the children participating in the Christmas pageant at Home Base is seven-year-old Stellina, who lives with Lenny, a small-time thief and
drug peddler claiming to be her father, and his kindhearted elderly aunt Lilly, a seamstress, whom she calls Nonna—Grandmother. Stellina's talisman is a silver chalice, which she believes to have been left to her by the mother she never knew and which, she fervently believes, will one day bring her back.

“Will the chalice fulfill its mission? Will Stellina see her mother again?”

• 
Describe the plot of
Moonlight Becomes You.

“Maggie Holloway, a young photographer, becomes the target of a killer with a twisted mind when she discovers a link between the murder of her stepmother, Nuala Moore, and several deaths at Latham Manor, a magnificent Newport mansion, now a residence for wealthy retirees.

“She has a chance encounter with Nuala at a cocktail party in Manhattan—a family reunion for the Moore clan of Newport. Nuala, a painter, had brightened her childhood, but they lost touch after her divorce from her father. When Nuala invites Maggie to visit her in Newport, she readily accepts. Nuala plans a dinner for a group of friends to welcome her, but when Maggie arrives, she finds the house ransacked and Nuala dead.

“Nuala had planned to sell her house and move into Latham Manor, but changed her mind at the last moment. Maggie learns that just the day before she died, Nuala had changed her will, leaving the house and everything she owned to her. Nuala's only request was that Maggie visit her friend Greta Shipley at Latham Manor as often as possible. In carrying out Nuala's wish, Maggie gets to know the
other residents and learns that several women there had died suddenly.