Let Me Whisper In Your Ear

Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: I read this book in four hours and loved it. Mary Jane Clark keeps you guessing as to who the killer is and it is always the one you least suspect.

Rating:
Summary: Page-Turner
Review: I saw this book in a bookstore and bought it after reading the synopsis. It was a good buy and I read it in one day. The book is written sometimes from many different people's viewpoints,but it isn't confusing like some books are when they are written like that. It focuses on the death of a little boy that happened thirtysomething years ago and the more recent death of a reporter who jumped off the roof of the building she lived in. It's ruled a suicide, but Laura Walsh wonders whether it really is or not. Now she begins the journey of going through the reporter's past. But will the past also include of shocking revelations that she wished she never had found out? Will she finally find out what her mother's haunting words meant that she told her father so many years ago? She also soon finds out that somehow the suicide case and the case of the boy who died thirtysomething years ago are tied in someway. How she doesn't know. But she intends to find out what happened that night to the little boy and how he died and why. All the questions and many more are answered in the end. Get this book and find out what the answers are! Good book for summer reading on a vacation.

Rating:
Summary: Page-Turner
Review: They say to write about what you know, and CBS writer/producer Mary Jane Clark does just that. In her third mystery novel, "Let Me Whisper In Your Ear," she tackles the cutthroat biz of TV news. Unfortunately, the mystery is a lot less interesting than it sounds.

Laura is a rising star at Key News, with her uncanny ability to create "obits" of people who are either going to die or have just died. Then there is a discovery made -- a young boy who disappeared at an amusement park thirty years before is found, dead, with all his bones broken. And at a party, star journalist Gwyneth Gilpatric is thrown from her rooftop.

Who wanted her dead? A better question would be: who DIDN'T want her dead? Her plastic surgeon, her jilted lover, her lover's angry wife, the coworker whose job she destroyed, even her cleaning lady -- for envy, revenge, and salvaging their careers. Even Laura is under suspicion, having inherited most of Gwyneth's money and possessions. As she begins to unravel both unsolved mysteries, she finds that the murderers may be too close to her...

"Let Me Whisper In Your Ear" falls under the shadow of Mary Higgins Clark. It has pretty much the same sort of elements -- glitzy glamour, a high-powered young professional woman as amateur detective, plenty of motives and suspects. It even has the same short chapters. But Clark can't bring quite the level of suspense and vibrancy to her mystery. "Whisper" just doesn't gel.

Clark tries too hard to evoke a feeling of suspense, throwing out red herrings and clues by the dozen (although one of the deaths is ridiculously easy to solve). Her writing isn't that good; she spends more time describing designer clothes, furs and shoes than she does describing the characters. However, there are some scenes where she blossoms -- the scene where Gwyneth falls to her death is chilling.

Clark's characters tend to be "types" rather than people. Even with Laura's tragic history, she's a pretty boring heroine. The nasty, ambitious Gwyneth is far more compelling. The rest of them -- traumatized guy, catty alcoholic wife of sexy adulterer, cheating lovers, sexy kept girl -- are pretty cliched, and Clark adds nothing to them.

"Let Me Whisper In Your Ear" strains too much to be considered more than a very light mystery read. But Mary Jane Clark has some promise, even if it only pops up now and then. Flat and unengaging.

Rating:
Summary: A bumpy ride
Review: Thirty years ago, two kids sneaked out of their homes to go to Palisades Park and ride the roller coaster. Two kids went in, only one came back. Everyone in the group was sworn to secrecy and they have been living with this nightmare for three decades.

Laura Walsh is an up-and-coming television producer at KEY. She has been working on the network for several years making obituary segments of newsmakers before they die. This helps them to be prepared at a moment's notice and not to have scrounge for material when the newsmaker officially passes away. Laura wants to move ahead and work as a producer for KEY second highest-rated news magazine, Hourglass. In the story there is a murder mystery as well as a subplot involving a dead pool in which the person who predicts which celebrity will die next will win a lot of money.

The story is a bit forced there is no smooth transition from one scene to another. The author tries to hard in creating red herrings as well as planting clues. One things that the deaths in the book is about one thing when in reality is about another. She wants the reader to be suspicious of everyone and being a bit obvious about it. This book will not deter me in trying her other novels (this one is my first), however, Ms. Clark should let the story take its course and not spoil it with unnecessary details.

Rating:
Summary: EASY READ PLUS GREAT SUSPENSE
Review: This book was read in just a couple of hours. It was too interesting to put down! All the characters were very real and I loved the way Mary Jane Clark describes different things! I'm currently reading her second book - should be done shortly! I'm on the waiting list for Book #1. I hope her fourth book is out soon! I also like the fact that you don't have to read these books in any particular order - they're all great!

Rating:
Summary: A Good Beach Read
Review: This is a good book for a day at the beach. Laura Walsh, an up and coming producer for a major magazine, is working on an article regarding the now defunct Palisades Amusement Park. When digging commences for the new high-rise building that will take its place, the skeleton of a boy who disappeared 30 years ago is discovered. As Laura continues to try and get information on the Park, she begins to suspect that her father (who ran one of the rides at the park) may have been involved. There are a few surprise twists and turns throughout the story which make this a nice, light suspenseful read which will most likely hold your attention.

Rating:
Summary: She keeps getting better
Review: This was my third Mary Jane book and I absolutely loved it. I read it so fast because it was so interesting with different plots going and because her chapters are short. I am one of those people that enjoy books that have short chapters. This book also appealed to me because Mary Jane writes about people in distress, like Laura's father who is a hopeless alcoholic and her new boyfriend who has a drug habit. Nice to know that there are authors out there that keep in touch with the real world and know how to work it into a plot line without demoralizing people because they have human weaknesses. I can't wait to read her other books.

Rating:
Summary: I liked this book
Review: This was very enjoyable and good, and the pages read very fast.
I read this in two days!!

Rating:
Summary: Clark's best
Review: We've been reading Mary Jane Clark's newsroom-set mysteries in order, and it appears the "formula" is now firmly set. Again, we have the interesting venue of "Key News", where Clark capitalizes on her real life job at CBS News to give us an inside look at the stresses and glamour of television news producing. In particular, Whisper gives us an inside look at "Key's" competition to "60 Minutes" called Hourglass, where the principals will do almost anything in the chase for ratings superiority. We also get the scoop on how TV stations turn out those beautifully crafted video obituaries only hours after the death of a famous person.

That latter technique comes into play when the star of Hourglass, Gwyneth Gilpatric, allegedly falls to her death from the roof of her penthouse at her annual New Year's Eve Party. Our ambitious leading lady, Laura Walsh, proceeds from airing an obit prepared in advance to gaining a job on staff at Hourglass, have interned there as a college student. Her first assignment, to produce a retrospective of New Jersey's famous Palisades (Amusement) Park, quickly stirs up intrigue in the form of a 30-year old suspicious death of a young boy there, and the roles of Gilpatric, Laura's father (who used to run the Cyclone at the park), and another boy that survived his friend's death. Another murder or two complete a very intricate plot and reveal a fairly surprising conclusion that wraps up just about everything by page 320. So most will find this a good story, entertaining, informing, and suspenseful enough to keep those pages turning quickly.

The part of the formula we don't like are 145 chapters in a book this small, which chop you from scene to scene in just seconds of reading; and Clark's seeming insistence to fill these stories with hundreds of details, characters, and setting changes -- what we call clutter. Axe half the chapter switches and half that unnecessary stuff, and we'd be headed closer to the top shelf of the library instead of the beach book bin. Just our opinion -- otherwise, we're happy!