I'll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark

Who has not read about—or experienced—with a sinking feeling the fear that someone else out there may be using your credit cards, accessing your bank account, even stealing your identity.

In I ll Walk Alone, Alexandra “Zan” Moreland, a gifted, beautiful interior designer on the threshold of a successful Manhattan career, is terrified to discover that somebody is not only using her credit cards and manipulating her financial accounts to bankrupt her and destroy her reputation, but may also be impersonating her in a scheme that may involve the much more brutal crimes of kidnapping and murder. Zan is already haunted by the disappearance of her own son, Matthew, kidnapped in broad daylight two years ago in Central Park—a tragedy that has left her torn between hope and despair.

Now, on what would be Matthew’s fifth birthday, photos surface that seem to show Zan kidnapping her own child, followed by a chain of events that suggests somebody—but who? Zan asks herself desperately, and why?—has stolen her identity.

Hounded by the press, under investigation by the police, attacked by both her angry ex-husband and a vindictive business rival, Zan, wracked by fear and pain and sustained only by her belief, which nobody else shares, that Matthew is still alive, sets out to discover who is behind this cruel hoax.

What she does not realize is that with every step she takes toward the truth, she is putting herself— and those she loves most—in mortal danger from the person who has ingeniously plotted out her destruction.

Even Zan’s supporters, who include Alvirah Meehan, the lottery winner and amateur detective, and Father Aiden O’Brien, who thinks that Zan may have confessed to him a secret he cannot reveal, believe she may have kidnapped little Matthew. Zan herself begins to doubt her own sanity, until, in the kind of fast-paced explosive ending that is Mary Higgins Clark’s trademark, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place with an unexpected and shocking revelation.

I have to admit that I hardly ever read Mystery's.  I never read thrillers or horror.  I'm just a big, big chicken.  Honest.  I don't watch scary movies or even really intense ones.  But, I can also tell you that I rarely have nightmares and I'm not afraid to shower.  I like it that way.

Mary Higgins Clark is probably the one exception to my mystery rule because she doesn't scare me.  I honestly love the way she writes her stories.  I know it's the same format every time but I like it.  I like how she plays the characters out.  It is easy reading and doesn't require a lot of thinking.  It's a good pool or beach read, you know?

This book takes identity theft to a whole new level.  It's more than just identity theft and honestly, it was a bit heartbreaking.  How would it be to have everyone believing you guilty of something horrific when you are innocent?  Even your friends?  Awful.  That's how.

I couldn't read these kind of books one right after another, but one a year is a good time for me.  I enjoyed this book.  It was a pleasant diversion from my usual reads.

Content:  mild swearing