Read this in one day. It's a quick read (short chapters, which seems to be the key in making readers turn the pages ... writers, take note) and while a little far-fetched, I enjoyed it enough to finish reading it. From the beginning you know who the kidnappers are and what happens to the "missing twin," though until the very end of the story you don't know who masterminded the whole scheme. I'll admit, Clark does a very good job of keeping you guessing ~ I had it narrowed down to two suspects and was pleasantly surprised it wasn't the one I leaned toward.Probably because I read the hardcover edition, there were a few typos throughout the text that always managed to pull me out of the story when I stumbled upon them. I also am not very fond of Clark's prose ~ in places it's very simplistic to me, and I found myself editing it in my head.I also didn't find the twins' talk believable. I have twin nieces and am very familiar with the whole "twin telepathy" and "secret language" theories that have come forward throughout the years. I don't have an issue with that; in fact, I find that aspect of twin research fascinating. However, the twins were three years old. A lot of twins aren't carried to full term, and there was a hint of suggestion in the story that this might have been the case here, as it was mentioned that the mother had a C-section delivery. My nieces were (and still are) very small for their size ~ think about it: you have two people growing in a womb designed for one. Twins are naturally smaller that single babies when born and can lag behind their peers in development throughout childhood. Therefore, at times I found the twins' speech to adults and to each other to be too articulate for their age. They didn't seem like three year olds. They seemed five, maybe six, years of age.Besides those little quibbles, which I'm sure wouldn't bother the average fan, I enjoyed the story. It kept me reading, as I said ~ a quick book perfect for a summer day.
The story begins with the plotted kidnapping of identical twins Kathy and Kelly on their third birthday. Three conniving characters under the aliases of Harry, Mona, and Bert were responsible for enacting in the scheme devised by one known as The Pied Piper. The initial plan was to arrange the crime as a kidnapping with an 8 million dollar ransom (with 7 million dollars for the Pied Piper and 1 million dollars distributed evenly among the rest of the criminals); little did the Pied Piper know that the others may be conspicuously concocting plans of their own. The search for Kathy and Kelly could take longer than anticipated by both their parents, and the alleged kidnappers. tI enjoyed how this book seemed to have well addressed the concept of twin telepathy, where Kathy and Kelly would communicate through the use of "twin talk" or share similar feelings. There were instances in which one twin would feel the pain of the other twin or experience similar symptoms. Their remarkable bond is what led to the most progression on the case. I found it most interesting that they were born identical as well as conjoined by their hands; it is mentioned that they would intertwine their hands for comfort.tHowever, I found that the character development within the book seemed to be lacking. The criminals were portrayed as genuinely awful people from beginning to end; they took a "job" for a quick source of income and cared little about their heinous actions towards the twin girls. Expectedly, they became greedy and reckless. On the other hand, the book encompassed a few members of a large firm known as C.F.G.&Y. whom all acted typically businesslike and entitled. This made the book seem somewhat slow.tNonetheless, the novel was quite enticing.
What do You think about Two Little Girls In Blue (2007)?
A história teria sido algo bastante banal não fosse pelo bom desenvolvimento das personagens e a presença de pequenas narrativas paralelas, concebidas sem quebrar o enredo principal. Mary Higgins Clark, tal como todos os bons escritores de romances policiais, sabe dar o devido valor às personagens, em vez de se centrar exclusivamente no mistério em si, permitindo ao leitor desenvolver feedback emocional com elas.Usar kything (embora ela nunca o refira assim, é esse o nome que se dá à ligação telepática entre duas pessoas, normalmente irmãos, que lhes permite transmitir pensamentos e emoções um ao outro) na história foi um risco, pois doerá não agradar a todos os fãs do género, mas como foi feito de modo tão suave…
—Vitor Frazão
This was the worst book I've read in a long, long time, and trust me, I've read some very bad books. Two little girls in blue, lad, two little girls in blue...Not only were the characters flat, without any dimension or real character (imagine that, a character having character, who'd have thought!) but the story lacked a certain little something called depth. Everything I read was surface stuff, with no emotion or feeling. The whole thing sounded like you are being told what happened by a non-participating party who doesn't give a flying frog leap. Emotions are described as physical actions with very little insight into how the characters feel what they are feeling. You can tell how a person feels by describing their expression, but can you describe the actual feeling? Some writers can... this one can't.The story-line is very blah. Babysitter gets knocked out, twins get kidnapped by bad guys, bad guys want ransom, chick taking care of stolen kids turns out to be a psycho, decides she wants one girl and returns the other eventually after the ransom is met. Ms. Clark does try to spice it up by making the girls twins and having them communicate after their separation via twin-telepathy, which is really the only interesting thing about this book. The ending wasn't even interesting. I found the entire thing to be very predictable, with no depth or emotion. It was a major let down of a book, and I didn't even expect that much out of it. It was, after all, written by Mary Higgins Clark.
—Ellen
Your average mystery/crime novel. I didn't find this to be thrilling, but it kept my attention well enough. I thought the idea of the telepathy to be the most interesting piece of the book. I found the author to be a bit disconnected from the characters - there was a lack of strength in the emotions that'd be associated with a crime such as abduction. I've seen lots of Higgins-Clark's books around and so I thought I'd give one a go but although I found this to be a decent enough read, I don't have much desire to read any more of this author's work.
—Stephanie (Stepping out of the Page)
