The Christmas thief /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Alvirah Meehan, the lottery winner turned amateur sleuth, joins forces once again with private detective Regan Reilly to track down the beautiful ninety-foot tree that has been hijacked on its way to the Rockerfeller Center for the Christmas season.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Chapter 1 Packy Noonan carefully placed an x on the calendar he had pinned to the wall of his cell in the federal prison located near Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. Packy was overflowing with love for his fellow man. He had been a guest of the United States Government for twelve years, four months, and two days. But because he had served over 85 percent of his sentence and been a model prisoner, the parole board had reluctantly granted Packy his freedom as of November 12, which was only two weeks away. Packy, whose full name was Patrick Coogan Noonan, was a world-class scam artist whose offense had been to cheat trusting investors out of nearly $100 million in the seemingly legitimate company he had founded. When the house of cards collapsed, after deducting the money he had spent on homes, cars, jewelry, bribes, and shady ladies, most of the rest, nearly $80 million, could not be accounted for. In the years of his incarceration, Packy's story never changed. He insisted that his two missing associates had run off with the rest of the money and that, like his victims, he, too, had been the victim of his own trusting nature. Fifty years old, narrow-faced, with a hawklike nose, close-set eyes, thinning brown hair, and a smile that inspired trust, Packy had stoically endured his years of confinement. He knew that when the day of deliverance came, his nest egg of $80 million would sufficiently compensate him for his discomfort. He was ready to assume a new identity once he picked up his loot; a private plane would whisk him to Brazil, and a skillful plastic surgeon there had already been engaged to rearrange the sharp features that might have served as the blueprint for the working of his brain. All the arrangements had been made by his missing associates, who were now residing in Brazil and had been living on $10 million of the missing funds. The remaining fortune Packy had managed to hide before he was arrested, which was why he knew he could count on the continued cooperation of his cronies. The long-standing plan was that upon his release Packy would go to the halfway house in New York, as required by the terms of his parole, dutifully follow regulations for about a day, then shake off anyone following him, meet his partners in crime, and drive to Stowe, Vermont. There they were to have rented a farmhouse, a flatbed trailer, a barn to hide it in, and whatever equipment it took to cut down a very large tree. "Why Vermont?" Giuseppe Como, better known as Jo-Jo, wanted to know. "You told us you hid the loot in New Jersey. Were you lying to us, Packy?" "Would I lie to you?" Packy had asked, wounded. "Maybe I don't want you talking in your sleep." Jo-Jo and Benny, forty-two-year-old fraternal twins, had been in on the scam from the beginning, but both humbly acknowledged that neither one of them had the fertile mind needed to concoct grandiose schemes. They recognized their roles as foot soldiers of Packy and willingly accepted the droppings from his table since, after all, they were lucrative droppings. "O Christmas tree, my Christmas tree," Packy whispered to himself as he contemplated finding the special branch of one particular tree in Vermont and retrieving the flask of priceless diamonds that had been nestling there for over thirteen years. Copyright (c) 2004 by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark Excerpted from The Christmas Thief by Mary Higgins Clark, Carol Higgins Clark All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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Publishers Weekly Review

Mother and daughter Clark, each a bestseller in her own right, have produced a singularly slight and unmemorable tale with their third holiday suspense novel (after 2001's He Sees You When You're Sleeping). This time the villainy centers on an 80-foot Vermont spruce earmarked for the traditional Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center. Unbeknownst to the tree's owners, its branches contain millions of dollars' worth of diamonds, secreted there more than a decade earlier by con man Packy Noonan to conceal the proceeds of an investment scam. One of the scam's victims happens to be vacationing near the site of the planned tree-cutting, along with Alvirah and Willy Meehan, who successfully resolved a kidnapping in their previous caper. When Packy is finally paroled, he heads straight for the treasure, enmeshing him, his confederates, the Meehans and a bevy of other characters in vandalism, abduction and other crimes. Unfortunately, there's no mystery concerning who's doing what or why and little sense of menace or suspense. Classic mystery fans may be amused by the contemporary take on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons," but many readers, including those devoted to the Clarks' solo efforts, will be disappointed. Agent, Evva Pryor at McIntosh & Otis. (Nov. 9) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Mary Higgins Clark was born in the Bronx, New York on December 24, 1927. After graduating from high school and before she got married, she worked as a secretary, a copy editor, and an airline stewardess. She supplemented the family's income by writing short stories. After her husband died in 1964, leaving her with five children, she worked for many years writing four-minute radio scripts before turning to novels. Her debut novel, Aspire to the Heavens, which is a fictionalized account of the life of George Washington, did not sell well. She decided to focus on writing mystery/suspense novels and in 1975 Where Are the Children? was published. She received a B.A. in philosophy from Fordham University in 1979.

Her other works include While My Pretty One Sleeps, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Moonlight Becomes You, Pretend You Don't See Her, No Place Like Home, The Lost Years, The Melody Lingers On, As Time Goes By and Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry. She is the author of the Alvirah and Willy series, which began with Weep No More, My Lady. She is also the co-author, with her daughter Carol Higgins Clark, of several holiday crossover books including Deck the Halls, He Sees You When You're Sleeping, Santa Cruise, The Christmas Thief, and Dashing Through the Snow. She writes the Under Suspicion series with Alafair Burke. In 2001, Kitchen Privileges: A Memoir was published. She received numerous honors including the Grand Prix de Literature of France in 1980), the Horatio Alger Award in 1997, the Gold Medal of Honor from the American-Irish Historical Society, the Spirit of Achievement Award from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University the first Reader's Digest Author of the Year Award 2002 and the Christopher Life Achievement Award in 2003.

Many of her titles have made the best sellers list. Her recent books include All By Myself, Alone, I've Got My Eyes On You, and You Don't Own Me.

Bestselling suspense novelist, Mary Higgins Clark died on January 31, 2020 at the age of 92.

(Bowker Author Biography)