On the Street Where You Live

“On the Street Where You Live” by Mary Higgins Clark

Review by Gerti

Mary Higgins Clark novel “On The Street Where You Live” is a lively tale of murder in the present, and in the past. Protagonist Emily Graham moves back to her ancestral home in the seaside town of Spring Lake, New Jersey, after a nasty divorce. Her family sold the home at the turn of the century after one of her ancestor’s was murdered.

Emily is just settling in when the crew out back digging a pool make a grisly discovery – there are two bodies in her back yard. One body is recent, the other is of her ancestor, who has been there since 1892! The odd thing is, the recent murder victim, although wrapped in plastic, has her ancestor’s signet ring clenched in her cold, dead hand. This means that the modern killer knew about the earlier body. How is that possible? Since she’s just taken the house, Emily is beyond suspicion for the crime, but there are a number of characters in town with motive and opportunity to commit the crime.

Emily’s divorce was not the only thing that drove her away from her job as an attorney. She was also being stalked by the son of murdered woman who went mad after Emily got the alleged killer acquitted. When Emily starts getting ominous photos and post cards again, she checks to make sure this whack-job is still locked up – he is – but then has to think about who else hates her. Her ex-husband is one of the suspects, but she doesn’t even think of her high-tech millionaire buddy. He gave her a bunch of stock for defending him in a case, and she cashed it all in to buy the big house on the shore. What she doesn’t know, is that her sale led to a sell-off of other stock in the man’s company, and now he’s got revenge on his mind as well.

There are so many secrets in this small town that it would be re-writing the novel to list them all. Suffice it to say that Clark’s characters are well-differentiated and interesting, with the heroine very likable, and the baddies very disagreeable. The only aspect I didn’t like was the subplot where the modern killer perhaps was the reincarnation of the killer from the 1890’s. But if you can get past all that nonsense, “On the Street Where You Live” is a quick and satisfying read with just a touch of history and romance thrown in for good measure. Well worth picking up.