From Publishers Weekly
This time out, Clark ups the ante from her standard female-in-peril plot to three females in peril, all targets of a serial killer who fancies himself a night-hunting predator: "I am the Owl," he whispers to himself after he has selected his prey, "and nighttime is my time." The Owl kills his first victim, then it's off to attend his 20th high school reunion at Stonecroft Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson, where he intends to do in the last several women who humiliated him when he was a geeky high school student. Jean Sheridan, one of the intended victims, was actually nice to the Owl, but he decides she has to die anyway because someone told him she once made fun of him. Jean's daughter, Lily, whom Jean gave away at birth, must also die, for obscure reasons, as must Laura, the class beauty. In the course of stalking and capturing these three, the Owl kills several innocent bystanders just to vent his anger and alludes to dozens more he has slaughtered over the years. The game here is figuring out which of the men who come to the reunion, all former nerds, is the Owl: Carter Stewart, now a genius playwright; Mark Fleischman, a psychiatrist with a syndicated television program; Gordon Amory, television magnate; Robby Brent, famous comedian; or Jack Emerson, local real estate tycoon. If the killer's animal fetish is the Owl, then Clark's is surely the red herring as she cleverly throws them in by the dozen, providing irrefutable proof that first one man, then another, must be guilty. Since any of the men might be the killer, the final revelation is anticlimactic, but Clark's multitude of fans will be happy enough to spend time with the innocent and imperiled Jean and to participate in the guessing game. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
As pointed out in Book World's May 2 Summer Forecast, readers hardly need to be reminded that Mary Higgins Clark's latest spring offering is here. Nighttime Is My Time brings to 29 the number of novels to bear her name, novels that have routinely graced bestseller lists and earned her numerous awards and the title Queen of Suspense. It is equally significant that Clark, an icon in the mystery field, has been generous with her time and attention to numerous younger writers, as evidenced by an award she and her publisher have sponsored since 2001 to recognize new talented authors, including Barbara D'Amato, Judith Kelman, Rose Conners and M.K. Preston, who follow the vein of suspense Clark has so expertly mined.In a recent interview, Clark attributed her popularity to readers' ability to "walk in the shoes of the character." In the guidelines for eligibility to win the award that bears her name, Clark spells out the makings of a good suspense novel: "A very nice young woman, 27-38 or so, whose life is suddenly invaded. She is not looking for trouble -- she is doing exactly what she should be doing. She solves her problem by her own courage and intelligence. She's in an interesting job. She's self-made -- independent -- has primarily good family relationships. No on-scene violence. No four-letter words or explicit sex scenes."Nighttime Is My Time hews to this formula by creating an admirable protagonist, Jean Sheridan, a historian and author of a well-received book on Abigail Adams, then adds other elements to which virtually every reader can relate. Jean is returning to her hometown to be honored at the 20-year reunion of her class at Stonecroft Academy, a private school in upstate New York. But one of the six other honorees won't be attending the festivities. Hollywood agent Alison Kendall has been murdered in the book's opening pages by a man who had the resources to travel repeatedly to Los Angeles to stalk her before he drowned her in her own swimming pool.Alison's death strikes Jean hard. The two had been friends and part of a group of girls known for lunching together, their good looks and their cruelty to boys in the school. Typical high school behavior perhaps, but, like the boys of Columbine, Alison's killer has nursed a grudge over how the girls taunted him, most specifically for taking advantage of his stage fright when he played an owl in a school play. This murderer's vengeance, planned and implemented over two decades, calls for killing each lunch-table girl, and other unrelated women, and leaving no "signature" to alert law enforcement, save the little pewter owls he places undetected near their bodies, a "silent reminder of his visit, a calling card that everybody always missed." And although he readily admits to himself that Jean was the only girl who was kind to him, in fact had enough family problems of her own to have been ridiculed herself, our serial killer (who calls himself, unsurprisingly, The Owl) has decided she too must die. A reunion saddened by the tragic loss of a friend, a loss readers know is murder; the resourceful, successful heroine who has risen to the heights of her profession but must struggle to save herself and her daughter from the killer; the disappearance of actress Laura Wilcox, another honoree, before the reunion is over; a stalking serial killer who sits among the unsuspecting as a classmate and friend -- Clark enlists these and other trademark devices to ratchet up the empathy and suspense. While her fans may be delighted as the red herrings and misdirections pile up in chapters so short that their white space consumes a hefty percentage of the novel's pages, for this reader so much exposure to the killer's habits, thoughts and actions undermines the novel's plausibility. While he may call himself The Owl and wear a frightening feathered headdress, it's unlikely that the kidnapped Laura wouldn't allow herself to say his name, even to herself, regardless of his admonitions not to speak it aloud. Implausible, too, is Sam Deegan, an about-to-retire veteran investigator in the D.A.'s office, whose inability to link past and present crimes is troubling. So is his tendency to share information with suspects and people unassociated with the case, including a nosy reporter for the high school paper whose sole purpose seems to be to move the plot along when the action gets sluggish. Clark's successful contributions to the genre clearly indicate that she knows, and has done, better work. And while diehard fans may not object as Nighttime Is My Time wends it way to its inexorable conclusion, others who wish for more sizzle in their suspense or more spine-tingling entertainments may want to wait for Clark's next novel or try D'Amato, Kelman or the others whom she has so graciously encouraged. Reviewed by Paula L. Woods Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


From AudioFile
High school hurts don't disappear at graduation. Jean Sheridan attends her prep school's reunion weekend, only to realize that most of the girls with whom she has just eaten lunch are dying in the order in which they sat around the cafeteria table. Jan Maxwell gives voice to Jean and her surviving classmates, showing equal skill at terror, timidity, maliciousness, merriment, and vacuous self-absorption. Without overperforming the dialogue, she creates distinct and credible personalities for the disparate characters drawn in the text. Maxwell's voice drops to a villain's whisper seconds before exploding into a teen reporter's exuberance at finding a story. Her performance matches the author's skill at subtle storytelling. R.P.L. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
As graduates of the Stonecroft Academy class of '84 prepare for their twentieth high-school reunion, only a pimple-faced reporter for the school paper notes that this class has seen more than its share of mysterious deaths--and that all of the victims, one of whom died on the eve of the reunion, were members of a popular clique. The lovely Laura, now an actress, has survived thus far, but will she make it through the reunion? And what about Jean? She was popular, too, but she seems to have found the killer's soft spot. We know from the start that the murderer is a classmate--but not which one. We only know it was someone who was spurned by girls and made fun of by everyone, someone who dubbed his evil alter ego The Owl. But Jean treated him differently back then; when he didn't make the team, she had a kind a word for him. Jean's mind currently is on the anonymous messages threatening Lily--the daughter she gave up years ago. Who knows that Lily is hers? While trying to uncover who's taunting her, The Owl gets way too close. Clark's certainly mastered the art of the page-turner, and though many characters are relatively shallow and the plot somewhat predictable, fans will enjoy the comfort of watching the Clark formula unwind yet again. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
"The definition of an owl had always pleased him: a night bird of prey...sharp talons and soft plumage which permits noiseless flight...applied figuratively to a person of nocturnal habits. 'I am The Owl,' he would whisper to himself after he had selected his prey, 'and nighttime is my time.'" Jean Sheridan, a college dean and prominent historian, sets out to her hometown in Cornwall-on- Hudson, New York, to attend the twenty-year reunion of alumni of Stonecroft Academy, where she is to be honored along with six other members of her class. There is, however, something uneasy in the air: one woman in the group about to be feted, Alison Kendall, a beautiful, high-powered Hollywood agent, died just a few days before, drowned in her pool during an early- morning swim, the fifth woman in the class whose life has come to a sudden, mysterious end. Also adding to Jean's sense of unease is a taunting, anonymous fax she has just received, referring to her daughter, Lily, a child she had given up for adoption twenty years ago, the offspring of a romance between her and a West Point cadet killed in an accident a week before graduation. She had always kept the child's existence a secret, so who has found out? And why the implied threat now? Struggling to conceal her fears, Jean arrives at the hotel where the reunion is being held. One by one she sees the other honorees, including Laura Wilcox, the class beauty, whose dazzling exterior belies the fact that her television career is sinking, and the four men who, like Jean, had spent four bitterly unhappy years at Stonecroft: Carter (formerly Howie) Stewart, an acerbic and successful playwright, once the class nerd; renowned child psychiatrist and talk-show celebrity Mark Fleischman, who has never been able to resolve the pain of his own adolescence; Gordon Amory, a media mogul, hardly recognizable as the awkward boy who was the butt of cruel jokes; Robby Brent, a popular comedian, whose caustic humor emanates from a childhood of rejection. Omnipresent is an old classmate, Jack Emerson, the chairman of the reunion, whose reasons for spearheading the event may be motivated by something other than class spirit. At the award dinner, Jean is introduced to Sam Deegan, a detective obsessed for years by the unsolved murder of a young woman in Cornwall, who may also hold the key to the identity of the Stonecroft killer and the source of the anonymous threat to her child. She does not suspect that among the distinguished people she is greeting is The Owl, a murderer nearing the countdown on his mission of vengeance against the Stonecroft women who had mocked and humiliated him, with Jean his final intended victim. In Nighttime Is My Time, Mary Higgins Clark creates a riveting novel of psychological suspense, penetrating behind the pervading façade of status and respectability to depict the mind of a killer.


Download Description
"The definition of an owl had always pleased him: a night bird of prey...sharp talons and soft plumage which permits noiseless flight...applied figuratively to a person of nocturnal habits. 'I am The Owl,' he would whisper to himself after he had selected his prey, 'and nighttime is my time.'"

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"The definition of an owl had always pleased him: a night bird of prey...sharp talons and soft plumage which permits noiseless flight...applied figuratively to a person of nocturnal habits. 'I am The Owl,' he would whisper to himself after he had selected his prey, 'and nighttime is my time.'"

Jean Sheridan, a college dean and prominent historian, sets out to her hometown to attend the twenty-year reunion of Stonecroft Academy alumni, where she is to be honored along with six other members of her class. There is something uneasy in the air: one woman in the group about to be feted, Alison Kendall, a beautiful, high-powered Hollywood agent, drowned in her pool during an early-morning swim. Alison is the fifth woman in the class whose life has come to a sudden, mysterious end.

Adding to Jean's sense of unease is a taunting, anonymous fax she received, referring to her daughter -- a child she had given up for adoption twenty years ago.

At the award dinner, Jean is introduced to Sam Deegan, a detective obsessed by the unsolved murder of a young woman who may hold the key to the identity of the Stonecroft killer. Jean does not suspect that among the distinguished people she is greeting is The Owl, a murderer nearing the countdown on his mission of vengeance against the Stonecroft women who had mocked and humiliated him, with Jean as his final victim.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Before you pick up (or dismiss out of hand) Mary Higgins Clark's latest suspense story, Nighttime Is My Time, consider this: Whatever her literary shortcomings, she gives good value. Her easy-reading novels always deliver a plot-driven narrative, a heroine who can take charge of a situation and some creeping menace that is genuinely scary because it is familiar in a personal way. — Marilyn Stasio

Publishers Weekly

This time out, Clark ups the ante from her standard female-in-peril plot to three females in peril, all targets of a serial killer who fancies himself a night-hunting predator: "I am the Owl," he whispers to himself after he has selected his prey, "and nighttime is my time." The Owl kills his first victim, then it's off to attend his 20th high school reunion at Stonecroft Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson, where he intends to do in the last several women who humiliated him when he was a geeky high school student. Jean Sheridan, one of the intended victims, was actually nice to the Owl, but he decides she has to die anyway because someone told him she once made fun of him. Jean's daughter, Lily, whom Jean gave away at birth, must also die, for obscure reasons, as must Laura, the class beauty. In the course of stalking and capturing these three, the Owl kills several innocent bystanders just to vent his anger and alludes to dozens more he has slaughtered over the years. The game here is figuring out which of the men who come to the reunion, all former nerds, is the Owl: Carter Stewart, now a genius playwright; Mark Fleischman, a psychiatrist with a syndicated television program; Gordon Amory, television magnate; Robby Brent, famous comedian; or Jack Emerson, local real estate tycoon. If the killer's animal fetish is the Owl, then Clark's is surely the red herring as she cleverly throws them in by the dozen, providing irrefutable proof that first one man, then another, must be guilty. Since any of the men might be the killer, the final revelation is anticlimactic, but Clark's multitude of fans will be happy enough to spend time with the innocent and imperiled Jean and to participate in the guessing game. Agents, Eugene Winick and Sam Pinkus. (Apr. 6) Forecast: No surprises here-this should hit #1. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Having narrowly avoided abduction, one young woman begins to suspect that the disappearance of other women nationwide is no coincidence. With an eight-city author tour. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

AudioFile