Introduction: I’ll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark
I'll Walk Alone: A Novel
by Mary Higgins Clark is another book about a child going missing and I read it before I read the Eve trilogy (Review). I have read a few books by the author, and I like her writing style. Although both stories surround a missing child, the plots are very different, and both books deliver very different lessons. In Mary Higgins Clark’s I’ll Walk Alone, you will learn how to pay attention to detail even the minutest ones.
What is I’ll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark About?
Alexander (Zan) Moreland is a young, talented interior designer whose son Matthew went missing in Central Park two years ago. The babysitter, Tiffany Shields fell asleep while babysitting, and someone takes Matthew out of his stroller while she is sleeping. It’s March 22nd, and it would have been Matthew’s fifth birthday and it is a very difficult day for Zan. At the invitation of her ex-husband, Ted Carpenter, they have dinner together, but things seldom go as planned.
During dinner, they discover that pictures taken on the fateful day of Matthew’s disappearance have surfaced and they show Zan in Central Park with Matthew. Zan was meeting a client, Nina Aldrich at the time, who gives a vague alibi. What is Nina trying to hide?
Public sentiment is shifting from being against the babysitter to Zan herself. Because of blackouts in the past, she starts to doubt herself, and wonders if indeed she her hurt her son. Even her fiercest defenders believe that it is Zan the photos, and the photos have not been doctored.
Someone is also trying to bankrupt Zan and ruining her reputation by using her credit card to make large purchases, and playing with her bank accounts. Even her loyal assistant Josh, is now doubting her innocence, and Zan thinks it’s her former employer, Bartley Longe who has been bad mouthing her to clients and prospective clients – he is desperate because there are more competitors and his company is losing market share.
Once again, the police talk to Tiffany, now that the photos have surfaced. The babysitter is tired of being viewed as America’s most irresponsible babysitter and changes her story casting a dark shadow on Zan.
When she looks at the photos the detectives show her, the photos look exactly like Zan, the outfit is the same one that she was wearing the day Matthew disappeared, but the shoes are wrong, the straps are different. Tiffany knows that there is no way that Zan would have been able to return home and change her shoes without being late for her meeting with Zan, yet she says nothing to the detectives.
The story starts off with a woman confessing about a murder that someone is about to commit, but she doesn’t tell the priest, Father Aidan the full story and leaves abruptly. Unknown to her, the person who intends to commit the murder is watching her every move. When Father Aidan meets Zan at Alvira and her husband’s home for dinner, he is convinced that she is the person who saw him in confession recently, but there is something nagging him – there is a difference that he cannot pin down – it’s floating at the back of his mind. Much later in the story, the reader learns that the difference between Zan and the impostor are their hands – Zan’s hands are very smooth and soft, while the impostor’s hands are rough.
On his way to work, one of the security guards working at the church sees a woman who looks exactly as the woman who gave confession, except they are dressed differently. He keeps that information to himself, instead of telling Father Aidan.
Because of how I’ll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark is structured, it makes a great book to hone your problem solving skills. There are many stories within the story, which is a great test because in real life, while collecting information to solve a problem or make a decision, if you have done a great job in the data gathering phase, you will have many sources of information, and have to decide, which pieces of information are most relevant. As with real life, in the story, you are constantly asking, why is this important?
In life, there are many times we decide not to get involved, and others suffer because of our silence. In I’ll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark, we see that happening many times, and it is a lesson for us to speak up instead of playing it safe or not wanting to be involved.
Final Thoughts: I’ll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark
Higgins Clark does an excellent job of pulling the story together and the outcome is much more palatable than that of the Eve story (Eve (Eve Duncan)
, Quinn (Eve Duncan)
, and Bonnie (Eve Trilogy)
) by Iris Johansen. I recommend I'll Walk Alone: A Novel by Mary Higgins Clark. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. If you enjoyed this post, please share it.
I'll Walk Alone: A Novel
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