No Place Like Home

I finished Mary Higgins Clark's No Place Like Home a few days ago. Suspense novels are actually scarier than most horror, I find, because everything in a suspense novel could actually happen, while many horror stories rely on the fantastic or the supernatural. So I can maintain an element of disbelief while reading them. But with suspense, the events in the story could conceivably happen.

In No Place Like Home, Liza Barton, now living under another name and married with a child, is suddenly brought back to live in the very house where she accidentally shot her mother to death and tried to kill her abusive stepfather. Because the townspeople believed her stepfather's side of the story, she was nicknamed "Lizzie Borden" and the house was dubbed "Little Lizzie's house."

Her husband Alex has purchased this home for her, not knowing her history and not knowing of the terrible events that took place there. Even when he learns about the house and its history he insists he loves the house and wants to stay there. The real estate agent, meanwhile, is worried because she did not disclose the house's stimatizing history to Liza and that was a violation of the law. So she offers to show Liza (now known as Celia) another house nearby. But when Liza goes to keep their appointment, she finds the real estate agent murdered.

The plot becomes more complicated from there. There isn't just one bad guy involved; there are several. I'm not going to reveal the ending but I was pleased to discover that I did in fact spot the worst of the bad guys, and it was someone the reader wasn't supposed to suspect. So now should I go collect my detective badge?

This was a hair raising book, and I found it almost impossible to put it down and go to bed. I'm glad I read it.