Emily Graham knows what it's like to have enemies. The pretty New York attorney--a millionaire due to a lucky stock market break--has been sued by her greedy ex-husband and stalked by a man who thinks she helped his mother's murderer escape punishment. But when she buys her great-great-grandmother's childhood home in the sleepy resort town of Spring Lake, Emily thinks her new life will be saner, even though five other young women, including Emily's ancestor Madeline Shapley, have disappeared from Spring Lake under creepy circumstances over the past century.

No sooner has Emily moved in than she starts receiving frightening, anonymous messages. Worse, when she breaks ground for a backyard pool, the backhoe brings up the body of Martha Lawrence, who vanished four years ago, and whose dead hand clutches the finger bone of Madeline Shapley, identified by her sapphire ring. Both women disappeared on September 7, 105 years apart. When the cops and Emily realize that a similar parallel exists between two other missing women and that the anniversary of yet another girl's disappearance is fast approaching, they quickly surmise that a sixth murder will be attempted in just a week. But by whom? Is today's serial killer a copycat of the Spring Lake murderer of the 1890s--or a reincarnation? Fueled by fear, anger, and scary little notes from the killer, Emily's actively researching the murders, but even she doesn't realize how many suspects there are: the retired college president, who's being blackmailed, and his perpetually angry wife; the town's bankrupt restaurateur with a weakness for pretty blondes; the middle-aged detective with his finger right on the pulse of the crimes. Even Emily's friend Eric, the software CEO who made her rich, and Nick, her new coworker, seem to show up at suspiciously convenient times.

Mary Higgins Clark's cast of characters may be overly large; in going for quantity she skimps on the characterization, and all of them, including Emily, are as wooden as Al Gore. But characterization isn't what's made this 24-book author a bestseller-list regular. The cleverly complex plot gallops along at a great clip, the little background details are au courant, and the identities of both murderers come as an enjoyable surprise. On the Street Where You Live just may be Clark's best in years. --Barrie Trinkle


From Publishers Weekly
Is a reincarnated serial killer at work in a New Jersey resort town more than a century after he first drew blood? That's the catchy premise that supports Clark's 24th book. In the 1890s, three young women in the upscale seaside village of Spring Lake died at the hands of an unidentified killer. In the present day, two young women have disappeared from town and their killer, whose first-person ruminations vein the third-person narrative, is preparing to strike again. His final target will be Emily Graham, an ambitious young attorney just moved to Spring Lake from upstate New York, where she'd been victimized by a stalker. Emily is a typical Clark heroine, bright and beautiful, and the friends she makes and suspects she meets in Spring Lake are her equal in stereotype, among them a former college president with a dread secret; a failed, aging restaurateur with a much younger wife; and a hunky real-estate agent. Emily's dream of a new start in the house once owned by her ancestor the first victim of the killer of yore sours when the body of a present-day victim is found buried on her land along with remains of her murdered ancestor. The dream curdles further when more bodies turn up and Emily's upstate stalker reappears. This is a plot-driven novel, with Clark's story mechanics at their peak of complexity, clever and tricky. There's some nifty interplay between past and present via diaries and old books, some modest suspense, and a few genuine surprises, including the identity of both the stalker and the killer. Clark's prose ambles as usual, but it takes readers where they want to go deep into an old-fashioned tale of a damsel in delicious distress. The first printing is one million; that, and Clark's popularity, will be enough to push this title to #1. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
At the parole hearing for Donald Waring, Trish Duncan begins to wonder whether he was wrongly convicted of killing her sister 20 years ago. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Narrator Jan Maxwell's theatrical background comes to the foreas she portrays Emily, a criminal defense attorney pursued by anobsessed stalker. The story is further complicated by serial murders ahundred years apart. Clear enunciation, whether with accents or genderchanges, makes each character believable and appropriate. Maledetectives with smoke-laden voices sound professional as they dig upthe crime scene in Emily's backyard. News reporters are depicted asannoying, demanding, and authoritative. Emily is rendered in crisp,businesslike tones with an undercurrent of soft femininity. Clark isknown as the queen of suspense, but Maxwell also rules in the reader'srole. G.D.W. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Fleeing a bad marriage and a vicious stalker, Emily Graham arrives in Spring Lake, where she has purchased a house owned by her ancestors. But a mystery awaits her there: back in the 1890s, three girls, including Emily's distant relative, Madeline, were murdered in a space of five years. Now there seems to be a copycat killer who is following the pattern established by the 1890s murderer. Two girls, Martha and Carla, have disappeared over the past four years, and their bodies have never been found. When the remains of Martha, along with those of Emily's ancestor, are found in Emily's backyard, the police begin to hunt for the copycat killer, while Emily tries to solve the 1890s mystery. Suddenly the secrets of seemingly respectable Spring Lake citizens come to light, and the police find more than one likely suspect. The tension is heightened when several potential witnesses are murdered. Meanwhile, Emily has a major problem of her own to deal with: it turns out that the man convicted of stalking her was innocent; the stalker is still at large and now harassing her in Spring Lake. To add to her troubles, the killer has already chosen his final victim: Emily. Like all of Clark's novels, this one is a suspenseful page-turner that will delight her many fans. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
In the gripping new novel from the Queen of Suspense, a woman is haunted by two grisly murders separated by more than a century, yet somehow, inextricably linked... ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE Following a nasty divorce and the trauma of being stalked, criminal defense attorney Emily Graham leaves Albany to work in Manhattan. Craving roots, she buys her ancestral home, a Victorian house in the seaside resort town of Spring Lake, New Jersey. Her family sold the house in 1892, after one of Emily's forebears, Madeline Shapley, then a young girl, disappeared. As the house is renovated and a pool dug, a skeleton is found and identiWed as Martha Lawrence, a young Spring Lake woman who vanished several years ago. Within her hand is the Wnger bone of another woman, with a ring -- a Shapley family heirloom -- still on it. Determined to Wnd the connection between the two murders, Emily becomes a threat to a seductive killer...who chooses her as the next victim.


Download Description
Mary Higgins Clark, America's #1 bestselling author of suspense, always excels in exploring the quirks and twists of the human psyche, and in this new thriller she takes a journey into the uncharted territory of the criminal mind. Anxious to relocate after an acrimonious divorce, Emily Graham decides to buy her great-grandmother's childhood home -- an old Victorian house in the New Jersey seaside resort town of Spring Lake. The family had sold the house in 1892, after one of Emily's great-aunts, then still a young girl, disappeared. Now, more than a century later, as the house is being renovated and the backyard excavated for a pool, the body is found. But as one mystery is solved another begins, for next to those skeletal remains lies another body -- that of eighteen-year-old Martha Lawrence, who disappeared from her Spring Lake home only nine years ago. It soon becomes apparent that by trying to reclaim some part of her family's past, Emily has stumbled upon secrets that will threaten a devious and seductive killer. She will soon learn that he has chosen her as his next victim.


About the Author
Mary Higgins Clark is the author of twenty-four worldwide bestsellers. She lives in Saddle River, New Jersey.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One: Tuesday, March 20 He turned onto the boardwalk and felt the full impact of the stinging blast from the ocean. Observing the shifting clouds, he decided it wouldn't be surprising if they had a snow flurry later on, even though tomorrow was the first day of spring. It had been a long winter, and everyone said how much they were looking forward to the warm weather ahead. He wasn't. He enjoyed Spring Lake best once late autumn set in. By then the summer people had closed their houses, not appearing even for weekends. He was chagrined, though, that with each passing year more and more people were selling their winter homes and settling here permanently. They had decided it was worth the seventy-mile commute into New York so that they could begin and end the day in this quietly beautiful New Jersey seaside community. Spring Lake, with its Victorian houses that appeared unchanged from the way they had been in the 1890s, was worth the inconvenience of the trip, they explained. Spring Lake, with the fresh, bracing scent of the ocean always present, revived the soul, they agreed. Spring Lake, with its two-mile boardwalk, where one could revel in the silvery magnificence of the Atlantic, was a treasure, they pointed out. All of these people shared so much -- the summer visitors, the permanent dwellers -- but none of them shared his secrets. He could stroll down Hayes Avenue and visualize Madeline Shapley as she had been in late afternoon on September 7, 1891, seated on the wicker sofa on the wraparound porch of her home, her wide-brimmed bonnet beside her. She had been nineteen years old then, brown-eyed, with dark brown hair, sedately beautiful in her starched white linen dress. Only he knew why she had had to die an hour later. St. Hilda Avenue, shaded with heavy oaks that had been mere saplings on August 5, 1893, when eighteen-year-old Letitia Gregg had failed to return home, brought other visions. She had been so frightened. Unlike Madeline, who had fought for her life, Letitia had begged for mercy. The last one of the trio had been Ellen Swain, small and quiet, but far too inquisitive, far too anxious to document the last hours of Letitia's life. And because of her curiosity, on March 31, 1896, she had followed her friend to the grave. He knew every detail, every nuance of what had happened to her and to the others. He had found the diary during one of those cold, rainy spells that sometimes occur in summer. Bored, he'd wandered into the old carriage house, which served as a garage. He climbed the rickety steps to the stuffy, dusty loft, and for lack of something better to do, began rummaging through the boxes he found there. The first one was filled with utterly useless odds and ends: rusty old lamps; faded, outdated clothing; pots and pans and a scrub board; chipped vanity sets, the glass on the mirrors cracked or blurred. They all were the sorts of items one shoves out of sight with the intention of fixing or giving away, and then forgets altogether. Another box held thick albums, the pages crumbling, filled with pictures of stiffly posed, stern-faced people refusing to share their emotions with the camera. A third contained books, dusty, swollen from humidity, the type faded. He'd always been a reader, but even though only fourteen at the time, he could glance through these titles and dismiss them. No hidden masterpieces in the lot. A dozen more boxes proved to be filled with equally worthless junk. In the process of throwing everything back into the boxes, he came across a rotted leather binder that had been hidden in what looked like another photo album. He opened it and found it stuffed with pages, every one of them covered with writing. The first entry was dated, September 7, 1891. It began with the words "Madeline is dead by my hand." He had taken the diary and told no one about it. Over the years, he'd read from it almost daily, until it became an integral part of his own memory. Along the way, he realized he had become one with the author, sharing his sense of supremacy over his victims, chuckling at his playacting as he grieved with the grieving. What began as a fascination gradually grew to an absolute obsession, a need to relive the diary writer's journey of death on his own. Vicarious sharing was no longer enough. Four and a half years ago he had taken the first life. It was twenty-one-year-old Martha's fate that she had been present at the annual end-of-summer party her grandparents gave. The Lawrences were a prominent, long-established Spring Lake family. He was at the festive gathering and met her there. The next day, September 7th, she left for an early morning jog on the boardwalk. She never returned home. Now, over four years later, the investigation into her disappearance was still ongoing. At a recent gathering, the prosecutor of Monmouth County had vowed there would be no diminution in the effort to learn the truth about what had happened to Martha Lawrence. Listening to the empty vows, he chuckled at the thought. How he enjoyed participating in the somber discussions about Martha that came up from time to time over the dinner table. I could tell you all about it, every detail, he said to himself, and I could tell you about Carla Harper too. Two years ago he had been strolling past the Warren Hotel and noticed her coming down the steps. Like Madeline, as described in the diary, she had been wearing a white dress, although hers was barely a slip, sleeveless, clinging, revealing every inch of her slender young body. He began following her. When she disappeared three days later, everyone believed Carla had been accosted on the trip home to Philadelphia. Not even the prosecutor, so determined to solve the mystery of Martha's disappearance, suspected that Carla had never left Spring Lake. Relishing the thought of his omniscience, he had lightheartedly joined the late afternoon strollers on the boardwalk and exchanged pleasantries with several good friends he met along the way, agreeing that winter was insisting on giving them one more blast on its way out. But even as he bantered with them, he could feel the need stirring within him, the need to complete his trio of present-day victims. The final anniversary was coming up, and he had yet to choose her. The word in town was that Emily Graham, the purchaser of the Shapley house, as it was still known, was a descendant of the original owners. He had looked her up on the Internet. Thirty-two years old, divorced, a criminal defense attorney. She had come into money after she was given stock by the grateful owner of a fledgling wireless company whom she'd successfully defended pro bono. When the stock went public and she was able to sell it, she made a fortune. He learned that Graham had been stalked by the son of a murder victim after she won an acquittal for the accused killer. The son, protesting his innocence, was now in a psychiatric facility. Interesting. More interesting still, Emily bore a striking resemblance to the picture he'd seen of her great-great-grandaunt, Madeline Shapley. She had the same wide brown eyes and long, full eyelashes. The same midnight-brown hair with hints of auburn. The same lovely mouth. The same tall, slender body. There were differences, of course. Madeline had been innocent, trusting, unworldly, a romantic. Emily Graham was obviously a sophisticated and smart woman. She would be more of a challenge than the others, but then again, that made her so much more interesting. Maybe she was the one destined to complete his special trio? There was an orderliness, a rightness to the prospect that sent a shiver of pleasure through him. Copyright © 2001 by Mary Higgins Clark

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Spring Lake, New Jersey -- a beautiful seaside community with a very dark and deadly past. It was here in the late 19th century that three young women disappeared, each new occurrence taking place several years after the one before. While all the women were presumably murdered, the responsible party was never found. More than 100 years later, a new threat to Spring Lake emerges after someone stumbles upon the original killer's gruesome diary: A copycat has been born, and two more innocents have vanished. Now the time is right for the new killer to follow in his master's final footsteps -- to put the finishing touches on his own bloody legacy.

At the outset of On the Street Where You Live, Mary Higgins Clark's fascinating antagonist chooses his final prey: Emily Graham, a wealthy criminal defense attorney who has just landed a primo gig with a Manhattan law firm; quiet Spring Lake, a mere 70 miles from New York City, becomes her new home. The $2 million mansion Emily just bought may be a bit extravagant for her solitary needs, but because her great-great-grand-aunt, Madeline Shapley, once owned the home, the purchase seems right. When the killer discovers Emily's relation to Madeline, his excitement boils over: You see, back in 1891, Madeline was the original Spring Lake killer's first victim.

Soon, a horrifying discovery is made on Emily's new property, offering a clue to Spring Lake's grisly past. What Emily doesn't realize is that this discovery also offers a terrifying glimpse into her own fast-approaching doom.

Mary Higgins Clark is at her hair-raising best with On the Street Where You Live; after more than 25 years in the biz, Clark's plotting remains fresh and original, and her prose is still sharp as a knife. Chilling, engrossing, and genuinely enjoyable, On the Street Where You Live shows that the Queen of Suspense continues to work with the deftness and grace of a true master of the form. (Andrew LeCount)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Following a nasty divorce and the trauma of being stalked, criminal defense attorney Emily Graham leaves Albany to work in Manhattan. Craving roots, she buys her ancestral home, a Victorian house in the seaside resort town of Spring Lake, New Jersey. Her family sold the house in 1892, after one of Emily's forebears, Madeline Shapley, then a young girl, disappeared.

As the house is renovated and a pool dug, a skeleton is found and identiWed as Martha Lawrence, a young Spring Lake woman who vanished several years ago. Within her hand is the Wnger bone of another woman, with a ring -- a Shapley family heirloom -- still on it. Determined to Wnd the connection between the two murders, Emily becomes a threat to a seductive killer...who chooses her as the next victim.

SYNOPSIS

In Spring Lake, New Jersey, Emily Graham buys a Victorian house her family had sold in 1892 after one of Emily's forebears, young Madeline Shapley, had disappeared. Now, a skeleton is found. It is Martha Lawrence, who had disappeared only four years before. In her skeletal hand is a finger bone bearing a ring -- a Shapley family heirloom.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Is a reincarnated serial killer at work in a New Jersey resort town more than a century after he first drew blood? That's the catchy premise that supports Clark's 24th book. In the 1890s, three young women in the upscale seaside village of Spring Lake died at the hands of an unidentified killer. In the present day, two young women have disappeared from town and their killer, whose first-person ruminations vein the third-person narrative, is preparing to strike again. His final target will be Emily Graham, an ambitious young attorney just moved to Spring Lake from upstate New York, where she'd been victimized by a stalker. Emily is a typical Clark heroine, bright and beautiful, and the friends she makes and suspects she meets in Spring Lake are her equal in stereotype, among them a former college president with a dread secret; a failed, aging restaurateur with a much younger wife; and a hunky real-estate agent. Emily's dream of a new start in the house once owned by her ancestor the first victim of the killer of yore sours when the body of a present-day victim is found buried on her land along with remains of her murdered ancestor. The dream curdles further when more bodies turn up and Emily's upstate stalker reappears. This is a plot-driven novel, with Clark's story mechanics at their peak of complexity, clever and tricky. There's some nifty interplay between past and present via diaries and old books, some modest suspense, and a few genuine surprises, including the identity of both the stalker and the killer. Clark's prose ambles as usual, but it takes readers where they want to go deep into an old-fashioned tale of a damsel in delicious distress. The first printing is one million; that, and Clark's popularity, will be enough to push this title to #1. (Apr. 17) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

At the parole hearing for Donald Waring, Trish Duncan begins to wonder whether he was wrongly convicted of killing her sister 20 years ago. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile