I'll Walk Alone

Author: Mary Higgins Clark

Genre: Mystery

Publish Date: April 5, 2011

Pages: 332

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Summary:

Who has not read about—or experienced—with a sinking feeling the fear that someone else out there may be using your credit cards, accessing your bank account, even stealing your identity?

In I'll Walk Alone, Alexandra “Zan” Moreland, a gifted, beautiful interior designer on the threshold of a successful Manhattan career, is terrified to discover that somebody is not only using her credit cards and manipulating her financial accounts to bankrupt her and destroy her reputation, but may also be impersonating her in a scheme that may involve the much more brutal crimes of kidnapping and murder. Zan is already haunted by the disappearance of her own son, Matthew, kidnapped in broad daylight two years ago in Central Park—a tragedy that has left her torn between hope and despair.

Now, on what would be Matthew’s fifth birthday, photos surface that seem to show Zan kidnapping her own child, followed by a chain of events that suggests somebody—but who? Zan asks herself desperately, and why?—has stolen her identity.

Hounded by the press, under investigation by the police, attacked by both her angry ex-husband and a vindictive business rival, Zan, wracked by fear and pain and sustained only by her belief, which nobody else shares, that Matthew is still alive, sets out to discover who is behind this cruel hoax.

What she does not realize is that with every step she takes toward the truth, she is putting herself— and those she loves most—in mortal danger from the person who has ingeniously plotted out her destruction.

Even Zan’s supporters, who include Alvirah Meehan, the lottery winner and amateur detective, and Father Aiden O’Brien, who thinks that Zan may have confessed to him a secret he cannot reveal, believe she may have kidnapped little Matthew. Zan herself begins to doubt her own sanity, until, in the kind of fast-paced explosive ending that is Mary Higgins Clark’s trademark, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place with an unexpected and shocking revelation.

Deeply satisfying, I’ll Walk Alone is Mary Higgins Clark at the top of her form.

Review: 

You know when you stop doing something you dislike, and then you don't do that "thing" for so long that you forget why you stopped in the first place?  Then you end up accidentally doing that "thing" again, and you immediately remember why you stopped? (I know its not just me) Well Mary Higgins Clark books were my "thing." I decided to stop reading her books a long time ago, and after 50 pages of Walk Alone I remembered exactly why I stopped.

Mary Higgins Clark is a world revered author. However, in my opinion her books are very.....elementary.  See mysteries are all about Whodunit.  A good author can throw curve balls and twists to keep you guessing the entire book. *coughJamesPattersonCough*  Then you have elementary authors. They are the authors who focus on one thing and one thing only, which inevitably causes the reader to figure out the Whodunit almost immediately. Unfortunately, Walk Alone falls into the latter category.  Walk Alone is a frustratingly simple novel, but you continue to read it to figure out the why (and let me tell you even that is extremely disappointing.)

So what did I like about Walk Alone?

• The concept: To say that Walk Alone is simply about identity thief is not doing it any justice.  The concept behind Walk Alone is about trying to become someone else, in every aspect of their life (Or is it?), not just steal their credit.  If another mystery author *coughJamesPattersoncough* wrote Walk Alone it would have been epic.
• Zan: Her character was extremely well developed.  Mary Higgins Clark went into Zan's mind and explained her doubts, concerns, and thought process to the point that the reader starts to doubt themselves.

I recommend this book to anyone that cheats while reading books. If you or anyone you know always reads the back of the book first (like my mother) than they will LOVE this book. (because they wont have to read the back at all to figure out Whodunit.)