Melinda_sweetie@yahoo.com Title: Pretend You Don’t See Her Author: Mary
Higgins Clark Number of Pages: 318 Publication Date: 1997 Summary Pretend You
Don’t See Her is one of my favorite murder mysteries that I have ever read. My
favorite part of this novel is that the ending is very unpredictable. This story
started out when a real estate agent in New York, Lacy Farrell, who was assigned
to a new client, Isabelle Waring. Isabelle's daughter, Heather Landi, had died
in the previous year and it was Heather's apartment she decided to put on the
market. Isabelle would have never sold it, but her ex-husband, Jimmy Landi, said
that it was time for them to move on. Ever since Heather's death in a car
accident Isabelle knew that it wasn't an accident. When she was going through
Heather's things so they could get the apartment ready to sell she came across
her journal. The night before Lacy was supposed to show a potential buyer the
apartment Isabelle called her sounding concerned and said that she had proof
that her daughter's death wasn't an accident. Lacy didn't want to rush over to
the apartment at that late hour, so she told Isabelle that she would talk to her
in the morning. The morning came and Lacy went over to show the apartment to
Curtis Caldwell, the man who was an interested buyer. Later on that evening Lacy
decided to go over to the apartment and see what Isabelle was talking about on
the phone. When she got there she was frightened by a scream and hid in a
downstairs closet. She had the door opened a crack and saw Curtis Caldwell
exiting through the front door with Heather’s journal in his hands. She ran
upstairs and found Isabelle bloody on a bed and she was holding some of the
pages of Heather’s journal. Her last words were, “Lacy, give Heather’s journal
to her father. Only to him.....swear that....only to him.” Lacy didn’t know what
to do so she hid the journal pages in her briefcase and called the police. The
police men came over and asked her everything that she knew and they got a
fingerprint off the door handle which belonged to the murderer.
His real name was Sandy Savarano, a notorious hit man. Sandy did
everything perfect except for one problem, Lacy Farrell. He knew he had to get
rid of her and he thought it was going to be an easy task. He was soon proved
wrong when he found out that she was in the witness protection program and not
even her own family knew where she was. Before Lacy left she gave a copy of the
journal to Jimmy, made a copy for herself, and gave the original to the police.
Lacy was placed in Minneapolis and had to start her life all over again with her
new name, Alice Carroll. She was so depressed that she just stayed in her
apartment all by herself without leaving. Alice then decided that she would try
to make her new life better, so she became a member at a gym. She met a man
there named Tom Lynch, that ironically knew Heather Landi. Alice decided that
she wanted all the information that she could get so that she could get back to
her own familiar home. Tom said that he saw Heather on vacation and she seemed
very disturbed by the sight of Rick Parker, a real estate agent from New York.
Alice was very surprised at what he said because Rick was one of her co-workers
in New York. His father ran the agency and Rick only got a job there for that
reason. Rick got everything he wanted and more ever since he was a little child.
He supposedly tried to get together with Heather and she refused. He became very
upset and shot hurtful remarks at her. Every time after that she made it a point
to stay away from him. Alice took this information to the police and they didn’t
believe that he was in on the killings. She was so home sick that she cried
almost every night and she couldn’t talk to her mom without being on a secure
phone where no one could hear. One day she talked to her mom and she begged to
know where she was. Alice told her that she was in Minneapolis and made her
promise not to tell anyone. The word got around and Sandy Savarano booked a
flight to Minneapolis to deal with his problem. He took on the alias of Alice
Carroll’s father and looked everywhere for her. He went to the gym that Alice
went to to get her address and he soon became closer to his final kill. Tom
called Alice and told her that a man was looking for her claiming to be her
father and saying that her mother was very ill.
