All Through The Night: A Suspense Story
by Mary Higgins Clark

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Summary of All Through The Night: A Suspense Story

With Silent Night, Mary Higgins Clark, America's Queen of Suspense, gave her listeners their best Christmas present ever. Now, with All Through the Night, she once again celebrates the Christmas season with a tale of suspense that will keep us listening -- all through the night.

At the center of the novel are two of Mary Higgins Clark's most beloved characters, Alvirah, the lottery winner turned amateur sleuth, and her husband Willy, both of them caught up in a Christmas mystery that calls on all of Alvirah's deductive powers, as well as Willy's world-class common sense. When the story begins, Willy is looking forward to playing Santa Claus at the after-school center his sister Cordelia has established to care for the children of working parents on New York's Upper West Side, while Alvirah is busy with rehearsals for the Christmas pageant.

But suddenly a pall falls upon the Christmas cheer. The center itself is threatened with being closed down, a substitute that has been promised is withdrawn, a desperate young woman appears who begs for Alvirah's help in finding the baby she abandoned seven years earlier, and -- the final blow -- the little girl who is to play the Blessed Mother in the Christmas pageant vanishes....

Alvirah is soon on the trail of the truth, which must be found before Christmas, which leads to the theft of a valued chalice that is somehow at the heart of the mystery.

A missing chalice. A missing child. A desperate mother. Who but Alvirah can sort it out in time for Christmas?

The wintry story begins on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with 18-year-old Sondra Lewis, an aspiring violinist, tearfully leaving her baby on the steps of St. Clement's Church. Unbeknownst to her, Lenny Centino is robbing that same church on the same night, with his attention particularly on the Church's diamond inlaid chalice. He finds a buggy outside the church and uses it for cover as he flees. Only later does he realize that his take for the night includes the infant Stellina (Italian for star). The narrative then abruptly moves ahead seven years. Clark's lottery-winning protagonists, Alvirah and her husband Willy (introduced in Weep No More, My Lady) return for some amateur sleuthing. Sister Cordelia's thrift shop doubles as an after-school recreation place for neighborhood children (including a shy little girl named Star), but the building has been condemned. Bessie Maher had vowed she was leaving the house to the nun and her children. Now that she is gone, the will indicates that the tenants of the house, Vic and Linda Baker, are the true heirs. As December rushes on towards Christmas, Alvirah struggles to put things right before the children are left in the cold.

Like the best holiday stories, All Through the Night steers toward sentimentality, but it veers back on course with narrative wit and Alvirah's charm. Clark's prose is lean and her plotting is brisk. This is a mystery that would be a pleasure to share aloud with a family gathered at the fireplace for some holiday cheer. --Patrick O'Kelley

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