More Higgins Clark Holiday Mayhem
Writing bestsellers is a family affair in for the Higgins Clarks. Each successful on her own, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark, the mother-daughter team, have gotten together again this year to bring us their fourth holiday mystery, "Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea."
In it, they again unite characters they created separately to weave a cohesive story. While Mary is known for the drama in her books, Carol is better known for her humor, qualities they bring to the table when they settle down to work together.
"I can't be funny in my books," Mary told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm. "You know, I do the psychological suspense. One could have said that I go for the jugular vein and Carol goes for the funny bone. So when we do a book together, I can be funny. I have my character, a lottery winner who won $40 million in the lottery and now she's solving crime, so she teams up with Carol's character."
The day after Christmas, Mary's character, Alvirah Meehan, her husband, Willy, recently hitched private investigator Regan Reilly and her groom, Jack, head of the NYPD major case squad, embark on a luxury cruise. Regan's parents, mystery writer Nora and funeral director Luke, are also on board. Among the passengers is a group of 50 mystery writers, fans and assorted lecturers who have signed up for a mystery seminar.
The possibility of a tranquil post-holiday vacation soon vanishes when an aging fan swears she has spotted the "Ghost of Horror," the deceased mystery writer to whom the seminar is dedicated. Another fan disappears, an unexpected storm seemingly drives the ship off course, and another ship with no markings is making a fast approach.
The ship's owner, Randolph Reed, who calls himself the commodore, offered the voyage for free so he could promote his new cruise business. Mary said he invites people who have given a lot to charity or have done good things to take the trip. For example, 10 of the passengers are men who had been Santa Clauses. At the same time, some stowaways have climbed aboard.
"The poor commodore's nephew works for him and he smuggled these guys on board and is getting paid a lot of money to get them to an island in the Caribbean," Carol said. "But when Alvirah gets to the ship, they don't have a room for her so he has to give up the room with the two criminals in it. And so the action starts from there."
Mary, who lives in New Jersey, said the pair wrote every word together.
"She's on the laptop and we do every word together and then she will print out every three or four pages, and we'll go over and say, 'Well, there's a better word than this,' " Mary said.
They went on a cruise together to do research to get away for a week.
"We had adjoining rooms," Carol said. "Things happened on the cruise ship that we managed to put in the book, and just to get away from it all, and get going on the book and that was fun, too."
Carol lives in New York City, where she is working on her next suspense novel, "Laced," to be set in Ireland.
It was Carol's New York apartment building that was hit Oct. 11 by a plane carrying Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle, 34, and flight instructor Tyler Stanger, 26, of Walnut, Calif. The plane slammed into the building and fell to the street below, killing both men. At the time, Carol was out doing errands.
She has been staying in a nearby hotel while workers replace walls and do other construction. She recently told The Associated Press, "Everyone would prefer to be home, but we'll get through it."
To read an excerpt of "Santa Cruise," which is published by Simon and Schuster, a division of CBS, click here.