Series ✦ Penny’s Take
Mary Higgins Clark
Mary Higgins Clark · 1996
72/100
👍 Worth It
A number-one New York Times bestseller for good reason — Clark's clean, propulsive style and the clever financial-fraud-plus-murder plot give this broad appeal without resorting to the graphic content that marks most thrillers. The buried-alive opening is intense but not gratuitous, and the rest of the book is genuinely accessible to a wide adult audience including older teens. Formula readers will find it predictable, but Clark's formula works.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
safety82
substance65
craft72
originality55
accuracy75
hype78
age-fit80
human-eye72
Penny’s verdict72
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