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DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW
by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark
Pocket, October 2010
399 pages
$5.99
ISBN: 145160937X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

It is always a pleasure to read a collaboration between the mother and daughter team of Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark. In this instance, it is a Christmas story set in the small town of Branscombe in New Hampshire, largely featuring the staff of the local store Conklin's.

The town is about to have its initial Festival of Joy, something which the townspeople are anticipating with varying degrees of pleasure and which is bringing in tourists, including detectives Alvirah Meehan and Regan Reilly. They, of course, don't anticipate they will need to exercise their detecting skills during the Festival although canny readers will have a different opinion.

Sam Conklin, owner of the store, has been unfortunate enough to have been trapped in marriage by scheming Rhoda. She is determined to exterminate every joyful feeling from the members of staff of the store and insists that her husband not pay them the customary Christmas bonus.

Duncan, one of the staff, has decided to go to lectures on financial advice. Little does he know that the "advisers" are con men who fleece the members of their audience. He falls for the scam they run and also follows their advice to give up buying lottery tickets. To his astonishment, the ticket bought by the staff wins the multi-million prize, but his colleagues refuse to let him miss out and cut him in on his share of the winnings anyway.

Duncan, however, meets with an accident and disappears.

Duncan's girlfriend Flower, who lives in California, decides to pay a visit to her boyfriend. Unfortunately, as soon as she arrives in Branscombe, she is kidnapped.

The Clarks's characters are always pretty straightforward, either black or white. The con men in this outing, however, seem to be more a shade of dark grey, rather than completely black. All of the good people are uniformly considerate and thoroughly nice.

A certain amount of ingenuity has gone into the invention of trials and tribulations for everyone in this outing. Of course, there is a happy resolution for all the well intentioned people but not for the baddies. All the adventures combine to make a thoroughly "feel good" tale, one thoroughly appropriate to the season.

§ Denise Pickles has been reviewing for RTE for many years. She lives in Australia.

Reviewed by Denise Pickles, March 2010

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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