Mary Higgins Clark's books have sold more than 80 million copies in the United States alone--the French even named a street after her. What qualities have enabled America's "Queen of Suspense" to overcome adversity, developing the same resilient spirit and essential optimism shared by the heroines of her immensely popular novels? In her 2002 memoir, Kitchen Privileges, Mary Higgins Clark shared the details of her life with her readers, but she offered little significant reflection on those details. For that, readers must look to her fiction, where her themes, characters, and subjects suggest her responses to her life experiences. Mary Higgins Clark: Life and Letters provides readers with an analysis of these connections in a volume that should increase their understanding-and appreciation-of the author and her work. Focusing on subjects associated with the literary elements of representative Clark novels, Linda De Roche explores the relationship between the life of this bestselling author and the books that have won her legions of fans for more than a quarter century. Themes and issues woven into Clark's fiction--such as the role of the past in people's lives, repercussions of violence, and the concept of identity-are considered, while close critical readings uncover psychological, feminist, and sociopolitical interpretations that will delight fans and inform scholars.