All Around the Town

by Mary Higgins Clark

Book Overview

Mary Higgins Clark, the Queen of Suspense, crafts a terrifying story of murder and obsession with "a slambam finish" (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

When Laurie Kenyon, a twenty-one-year-old student, is accused of murdering her English professor, she has no memory of the crime. Her fingerprints, however, are everywhere. When she asks her sister, attorney Sarah, to mount her defense, Sarah in turn brings in psychiatrist Justin...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671793489
• ISBN13: 9780671793487
• Release Date: February 1993
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.2" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

fantasic

Better than I was expecting it to be. Read it! Keeps you engrossed into the book the entire way through.

An Eye Opening and Frightening Thriller

Four-year-old Laurie Kenyon was a happy child, living a normal life with parents who loved her and her older sister. One day she sees a line of cars slowly driving by and, thinking it's a carnival, she goes outside to check and is abducted. Two years later a cashier in a café happens to see her and a couple hours later she's left by the side of the road and returned to her family. However her abductors have told her what will happen to her if she ever tells, and for a little girl who has spent the last two years trapped with cruel and perverse people who had been abusing her, that wasn't a warning to be taken lightly. Fifteen years later Bic and Opal Hawkins, the couple that had abducted little Laurie, are televangelists, making a slick buck doing God's work. However, though they may have their evil eyes on heaven, they have them on Laurie too, who is now a senior in college. Laurie is going through a tramatic period. Her parents have been killed in a bus crash. Her sister is overly protective. She's left her boyfriend and doesn't seem to know why. she's apparently obsessing over one of her professors and begins writing him erotic letters. Then the prof is murdered and Laure is suspect number one. Did she do it? Can her lawyer sister help her? Two good questions and before they can be answered, it's discovered that Laurie is suffereing from MPD, multiple personality disorder. It seems there is more than one person in Lauire's head, a result of when she was living with the evil abuductors. When her abuse got so bad she couldn't stand it anymore, she'd hide in her head, go to a safe place. Is she still doing it? Did one of her personalities kill the prof without letting Laurie in on it? Of course, the God fearing, child rapers are keeping an eye out to see if Laurie remembers and that's what really makes this book a thriller. However, I must admit, I had a hard time thinking about the child abuse. The book did, though, open my eyes to MPD. Over all, I'd have to say this was a story well worth reading.

An Eye Opening and Frightening Thriller!

Four-year-old Laurie Kenyon was a happy child, living a normal life with parents who loved her and her older sister. One day she sees a line of cars slowly driving by and, thinking it's a carnival, she goes outside to check and is abducted. Two years later a cashier in a café happens to see her and a couple hours later she's left by the side of the road and returned to her family. However her abductors have told her what will happen to her if she ever tells, and for a little girl who has spent the last two years trapped with cruel and perverse people who had been abusing her, that wasn't a warning to be taken lightly. Fifteen years later Bic and Opal Hawkins, the couple that had abducted little Laurie, are televangelists, making a slick buck doing God's work. However, though they may have their evil eyes on heaven, they have them on Laurie too, who is now a senior in college. Laurie is going through a tramatic period. Her parents have been killed in a bus crash. Her sister is overly protective. She's left her boyfriend and doesn't seem to know why. she's apparently obsessing over one of her professors and begins writing him erotic letters. Then the prof is murdered and Laure is suspect number one. Did she do it? Can her lawyer sister help her? Two good questions and before they can be answered, it's discovered that Laurie is suffereing from MPD, multiple personality disorder. It seems there is more than one person in Lauire's head, a result of when she was living with the evil abuductors. When her abuse got so bad she couldn't stand it anymore, she'd hide in her head, go to a safe place. Is she still doing it? Did one of her personalities kill the prof without letting Laurie in on it? Of course, the God fearing, child rapers are keeping an eye out to see if Laurie remembers and that's what really makes this book a thriller. However, I must admit, I had a hard time thinking about the child abuse. The book did, though, open my eyes to MPD. Over all, I'd have to say this was a story well worth reading.

A Rollarcoaster thrill-ride! Suspense until the end!

I am amazed that I was kept on the preverbial 'edge of my seat' with this book! I read it in 6 hours and could not put it down! The suspense and twists were enough to make me wince and become anxious! Unbelievable suspense from what I now refer her to, THE Queen of Suspense, Mary Higgins Clark...~'All Around the Town' is a simple childs rhyme, but not to little four year old Laurie Kenyon. She has been abducted and held mercilessly for two long and torturous years, suffering abuse and horrible mind games so severe that when she is released at age six, she doesn't even remember what has happened to her!Now at age 21 she is found accused of murdering her English professor, Allan Grant, but she has no memory of the gruesome crime!Apparently during those horrible years of being held prisoner, she has developed multiple personalities, one of which is a sex kitten calling herself "Leona". Leona has been writing crazed love letters to Allan Grant and has been secretly entering his home! She watches him sleep and wishes she could be with him...but the host personality, Laurie, is unaware of the many other 'people' living inside of her.When things seem to go farther downhill for a suffering Laurie, her sister and best friend, a reknowned prosecutor,Sarah, takes up her defense and brings her to a psychiatrist Justin Donnelly, a specalist in MPD, Multiple Personality Disorder. Justin must be the one to help Laurie unlock her forbidden memories from those missing two years of captivity. But evil is lurking in the shadows...Laurie's abductor, now a famous televison evangelist, is still hopelessly obsessed with little Laurie and is determined to get to her one last time.This story has twists upon twists that will leave you gasping for air and wanting more! The sad tale of a tortured woman trying to save herself by remembering who she is and what has happened all those years past. We get to see her world through her mind's eye and what we see is horrible and obscene. The preacher will never let her remember, but can Laurie beat him to the punch? A real rollarcoaster thrill-ride packed with suspense, enough to keep you on the edge of your seat until the wee hours of the night!(...)

All Around the Town is an awesome book

Mary Higgins Clark has done it once again! Her outstanding skills of writing suspense novels prevail in her novel, All Around the Town. All Around the Town is the story of a girl who is snatched from her home at the age of four and dropped off at a local school two years later. To deal with the trauma of this event, Laurie, the girl, makes up alter personalities. The personalities become nearly dormant until she blames herself for her parents death is a car accident. The personalities come out again to help her deal with the trauma of losing her parents. One of the personalities is then accused of killing one of Laurie's college professors, and none of the personalities remember killing him. The twists and turns in this story keep you reading it all night long. You just can't put it down. All Around the Town is a book to be read over and over again.

All Around the Town

I recently read the book by Mary Higgins Clark entitled All Around the Town. It was very suspeseful and impossible to put down. With all the twists and turns in the plot, there's never a dull moment. It's about a girl who is kidnapped at a young age and how this experience haunts her in her later years. I hated when the book ended. I just had to read it more! All Around the Town is a great book that you can read over and over again and never get tired of.