On The Street Where You Live (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
Emily Graham, a successful defense attorney and recently rich, decides to buy an old Victorian home at the New Jersey resort seaside of Spring Lake, that once belonged to her great, great grandmother. Emily has also accepted a job with Todd, Scanlon, Klein and Todd, a nationally known criminal defense law firm in Manhattan. After closing on the house, and trying to establish her life in the new area, Emily receives threats on her life, which she believes are from the stalker that she put in jail four and a half years ago. Believing that he has escaped she lets the police know of the threats. In the meantime Emily hires contractors to have a pool built in her back yard and while they are digging, they find the skeletons of a body buried there. And not just any body, but Emily’s ancestor. Emily now is determined to find out who killed her ancestor, so she starts digging into old files, and seeking answers from the old folks who live in the town. Some of them are happy to give her the answers but some want to keep secrets. As the story unfolds skeletons appear and people are murdered, Mary Higgins Clark introduces extra characters into the story, who in my opinion don’t necessarily need to be there. The reader easily becomes confused of all the characters that appear and from time to time he/she has a hard time remembering their names and their purpose. Towards the last chapters, the reader can easily figure out who Emily’s stalker is, but who killed the young girls a century ago, is also a surprise, since the killer should have been dead by now, in which case the author makes him to be close to a 100 years old. Mary Higgins Clark might be considered America’s Queen of Suspense, but this novel was confusing and not as suspenseful as I expected it to be.
Jalan cerita yang cukup lambat dari buku ini seolah menutupi keistimewaan buku ini. Pembunuhan antar abad yang melatari buku ini sangat unik, 3 orang wanita muda dibunuh 1 abad yang lalu, mayatnya tak diketahui dimana. Nah, di abad yang baru ini, tiba-tiba ada lagi 2 gadis yang hilang, satu persatu mayat mereka ditemukan dalam satu kuburan dg para korban di 1 abad yang lalu! Kok cuma 2? bukannya 3? nah, 1 orang lagi sedang ditunggu pada tanggal 31 maret, tanggal yang sama dg kematian gadis ketiga seabad yang lalu.Tokoh utama di buku ini ialah Emily, dan dia lah proyeksi korban ketiga pada abad ini. Indikasi ia menjadi korban ialah adanya seseorang yang dg ulet menguntitnya. Dengan tokoh-tokoh lain yang begitu banyak dan berbagai macam karakter, latar belakang, serta permasalahan, pembaca seolah diajak untuk menemukan si penjahat yang sebenarnya. Gaya cerita si penulis yang terkesan menumpuk berbagai macam motif sungguh sangat membingungkan dan membuat gemas. Walau pada akhirnya si penulis menceritakan dg jelas apa dan siapa para tokoh dan permasalahan masing-masing, tak ayal jalan cerita yang berputar-putar ini membuat bosan. Untungnya, twist menjelang akhir buku sangat memuaskan, bagaimana kejahatan ini tercipta dan siapa pelaku pembunuhan yg sebenarnya sungguh membuat berdecak kagum. Mungkin disinilah kekhasan MHC dalam bercerita, mengingat ini buku MHC pertama yang saya baca. Tetapi apabila memang gaya bercerita beliau seperti ini, saya dapat katakan bahwa teh ini bukan cangkir buat saya. Well, dari cerita sih oke banget, tapi dari muter-muternya itu lho.. kapok deh..3 bintang cukup.
What do You think about On The Street Where You Live (2002)?
After reading "Daddy's Little Girl", by Mary Higgins Clark, I was excited to become engrossed in another of her novels. But, I have to say, "On the Street Where You Live", was very disappointing to me. I actually couldn't wait to finish it, just to finish it, not because I couldn't wait for the ending. This story covers eleven days. It starts on Tuesday, March 20, and the "big" day that keeps popping up in the book is Saturday, March 31. Kind of eerie, I finished this book today, Saturday, March 31!!Emily Graham, a defense attorney, decides to buy her ancestors' Victorian house in Spring Lake, New Jersey. This house is where her great, great, grandaunt, Madeline Shapley had lived, and the neighborhood where Madeline mysteriously disappeared in 1891. There is intrigue with the reincarnation aspect throughout much of the novel.I only gave 2 stars because there are too many side stories, too many characters, and it didn't wrap up neatly enough at the end. I am not giving up on Mary Higgins Clark. I am sure there are many other good mysteries she has out there. This one just left me irritated, and exhausted.
—Martha
Women disappear in the 1800s and women today are being murdered and buried in the same previously hidden places as the women 100 years ago were. Plus there are stalkers and notes slipped under doors and people being strangled and possible reincarnation!....I don't know how you can manage to make this horribly boring but somehow Clark manages it. Other reviewers say that the book is "complex" and "hard to follow". Nope. Just poorly written. The "complexity" is caused by introducing way too many characters who have similar names and don't need to be there in the first place. It's complex because we stop caring and our minds wander. By the end, all of the characters were so much the same I didn't even know which one the killer was. I literally did not remember who he was. Everyone is just a name and the same character...and pretty empty ones at that.
—Hannah
I picked this up for $0.95 at the DAV thrift store one day when I was trapped in downtown Oceanside without my car and had a whole lot of time to kill. I had read some Mary Higgins Clark books as a kid but none really as an adult. I finished it that day, not just because it was a quick read, but because it was a really good story. Have I noticed in the 10 or so that I've read since then that all her stories have a lot of similarities in the setup and plot development? Yeah, and yet I keep reading them. They're all really enjoyable.
—Lauren
