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    Where are the Children?
    Where are the Children?
    Where are the Children?
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Where are the Children?

    Written by Mary Higgins Clark

    Narrated by Lindsay Crouse

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The #1 New York Times bestselling author and Queen of Suspense launched her career with this “indescribably suspenseful” (San Francisco Chronicle) classic thriller following a woman whose past holds a terrible secret.

    Nancy Harmon long ago fled the heartbreak of her first marriage, the macabre deaths of her two little children, and the shocking charges against her. She changed her name, dyed her hair, and left California for the windswept peace of Cape Cod. Now remarried, she has two more beloved children, and the terrible pain has begun to heal—until the morning when she looks in the backyard for her little boy and girl and finds only one red mitten. She knows that the nightmare is beginning again...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJan 1, 1992
    ISBN9780743545204
    Author

    Mary Higgins Clark

    The #1 New York Times bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark wrote over forty suspense novels, four collections of short stories, a his­torical novel, a memoir, and two children’s books. With bestselling author Alafair Burke she wrote the Under Suspicion series including The Cinderella Murder, All Dressed in White, The Sleeping Beauty Killer, Every Breath You Take, You Don’t Own Me, and Piece of My Heart. With her daughter Carol Higgins Clark, she coauthored five suspense novels. More than one hundred million copies of her books are in print in the United States alone. Her books are international bestsellers.

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    Reviews for Where are the Children?

    4/5

    37 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This storyline is very gripping and extremely bold considering the time period it was first written. I believe I read it first about 30 years ago. Nancy Harmon's two children are dead. She is accused and facing death but gets released on a technicality. She then changes her identity and flees to Cape Cod. She marrys and has two more children and basically begins to relive the nightmare again when they go missing - and she is again a suspect. The anxiety of missing children, the false imprisonment and the devastation of a suicide all lead to an emotionally turbulent read. I picked it up and was devoted to reading through it as quickly as posssible.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Quick, easy read, enjoyed it.
    • 5/5
      A very good mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end.
    • 3/5
      A women's life starts repeating when her two children go missing, just like they did in her first marriage when they were murdered. She can't believe the nightmare is starting all over again. As always, Clark did a wonderful job with this book, I just didn't like the fact that the children were taken.
    • 1/5
      This was a horrible book- just drivel. Sorry, MHC, you seem like an awesome person, but this book sucked and I will probably never read anything by you ever again. If you're going to switch the perspectives of characters willy nilly in the middle of paragraphs, at least make it understandable. There's just so much to say....but it's not even worth it. Good God, MHC. *Face/palm*
    • 2/5
      The story involves an innocent woman, Nancy Harmon, who was at one point convicted of the murder of her two young children and sentenced to the gas chamber in California. Released on a technicality, the key witness had disappeared so she couldn't be retried. She dyed and cut her hair, changed her name, moved to Cape Cod and married and had two more children. And now, the secret of her true identity has come to light in her new community and her five-year-old son Michael and three-year-old daughter Missy have disappeared.As a rule, if I get through an entire book and don't want to hurl it at the wall, I give it at least three stars, but somehow I don't want to give this book so much credit. It's pretty short, about 65,000 words or so, and being written at a grade school level really in syntax and vocabulary pages do fly by before you know it, and I read this in a few hours and not once did I slow to savor a nice piece of writing or want to speed up because I found it at all suspenseful. I found the prose pretty pedestrian.Predictable is what I found the plot. In an introduction, the author says her inspirations included Agatha Christie and Josephine Tey, but she doesn't have their ability to keep me guessing or deliver a jaw-dropping twist. (Or their witty prose and ability to write memorable characters.) I think that's at least partly because the central mystery involves events years in the past and across the country, which means given the little we're told, I knew by 15 pages in that the kidnapper of the children could be one of only two possibilities, and by 20 pages in guessed which of the two was probably guilty--and the nature of the "twist" and I was right. Even though this isn't a terrible novel, I can't even really recommend this as an airplane or beach read. Just too meh.
    • 5/5
      I really loved this audiobook. I love the narration by Lindsay Crouse. It has become one of those audiobooks that I play while I drive or while I’m about the house. The story itself is not really full of twists and turns. I think it’s simple, in a comfy and classic type of way. I really wanted to listen to the unabridged version but I preferred this narration. It’s so home-like, like a hug. I listen to this over and over again, along with a couple different audiobooks (Misery, Bridget Jones, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Kiss Me First, To Kill a Mockingbird, In a Dark Dark Wood) that I just keep on replay when I want to listen to something familiar and don’t have time to search for something new.
    • 3/5
      My Rating: Three & 1/2 Stars

      This was actually really, really good for a debut novel. Considering the subject matter, it clearly demonstrates that Mary Higgins Clark was ahead of her time when she wrote the book in 1975. I can see why it was a real standout; the shocking, suspense-filled thriller must've had everyone talking. Compared to present-day novels, Where Are The Children? is still a very good mystery. It aged well, but I did have a few problems that kept it from being a standout experience.

      First, I had a difficult time connecting to the characters. It wasn't really until the very end that I even remotely liked Nancy. It helped once I understood what had happened to her, but then I struggled with her sudden turn around from the meek reclusive woman, to the She-Cat of Cap Cod. Anyway, I still enjoyed watching the transition and was able to suspend belief just because Nancy deserved something positive. I'm mean...c'mon...she'd been through enough. Who am I to rain on her "I am woman, hear me roar!" parade? Mom's do get a little crazy when it comes to protecting their babies. I would know.

      Also, I had to struggle to make myself keep reading during the first half of the book. There was too much predictability and the dialogue was just boring. Granted, it's Clark's first novel and my first time to read her work...take it with a grain of salt. Maybe I was just sleepy or something.

      I did like the overall plot of the story and the way multiple sub-plots all came together in the end. It's not a terribly long novel, either, so pick it up and give it a try! I'll be picking up one of her recent books soon as I'm super eager to see how the Queen of Suspense has grown in her writing over the years!
    • 3/5
      Years and years ago Nancy's two young children were brutally murdered, and she only narrowly escaped charges. Now, years later, she's established a new life for herself, with a new look, new name, and a new family. Until one day, the children go missing...Yet another M. H. Clark book I think parents will appreciate (or find horror in) more. This was an okay book (and fortunately shorter than her typical novels), but I wasn't particularly grabbed by it. The unfolding events were plausible I suppose, but the elements of this book that I enjoyed I feel Clark has employed much more enjoyably in some of her other works.
    • 2/5
      This book started off so well. And then, predictable and stupid towards the end. Why did it start off so well? The villan came across as a true villan should. Cold, manipulative, strategic and he was executing his plan to the letter. Then about midway through the book, the stupidity started to set in. All of a sudden he could no longer predict the future. He could not stay one step ahead of the good guys. He started making mistakes. This, all for a crime he was duplicating, repeating.

      This is the story of Nancy Harmon (aka Nancy Eldridge)who is running from her past. Apparently she was caught up in a legal mess after being prosecuted for the death of her first two children under her first marriage to Carl Harmon. She simply lost her childeren to have them wash up in San Francisco Bay. So she decides to move east to escape the pressure and the publicity as her trial was labeled a Mis-Trial because of a lack of a witness that ran away. So she moves to Cape Cod and 7 years later she is re-married to Ray Eldridge and has two additional children.

      It all started on her birthday where she read the front page news about her trial 7 years ago, and the article having detailed pictures that identified her to have her relive the nightmare of 7 years past. Did she kill her children? Did someone else do it?

      As I said in my opening, this book turned out totally stupid. Suspensful? To some degree but then you reflect and you wonder how Mary Higgins Clark got away with writing this stuff.
    • 3/5
      Very predictable story line. Mary Higgins Clark didn’t deliver the page turner I’ve come to expect from her. It wasn’t bad. It just was not up to her usual standard.
    • 5/5
      It was a quick easy read! I really enjoyed this book.
    • 3/5
      I enjoy Mary Higgins Clark mysteries and this one was another enjoyable read. note, this one is creepy
    • 4/5
      very good book
    • 4/5
      Her first mystery, I believe. Thrilling, chilling! It kept my attention, even though I have read it many times before. Well-written, believable characters. I enjoy her older works the most. This mystery is about a woman who has fled her past, and an accusation of murdering her children, to start a new life in New England. She marries again, has two more children, and life is getting back to normal. Until she goes outside to fetch her children from their playtime one morning, only to discover they are missing.