Mary Higgins Clark | Daddy's Gone A-Hunting

This is the first Mary Higgins Clark novel that I've read. I'd heard that she's pretty good at the whole suspense/thriller type genre and so I thought I would give it a go. I saw that one of my friends on Goodreads had recently read this and given it 4 stars so I was like...meh...let's take a stab at this.

The story is centred around a family that have been making top quality reproduction antiques for three generations, The company is starting to get into some financial difficulty and then one evening there is a gas leak and an explosion which burns the entire company building to the ground including the factory and also the museum where they store their collection of priceless antiques.

To make matters worse, a member of the family, Kate and an ex employee are pulled from the debris of the building after the explosion. The ex employee is dead, but Kate is in a coma and lies in hospital with her family visiting and waiting for her to wake up to explain what happened.

Investigators discover that there are signs of foul play and within the company building and it seems to point towards someone having deliberately caused the explosion to be able to claim the insurance money. Since Kate and the ex employee were the only ones in the building at the time, all the blame seems to be pointing towards them.

Other sub-plots seem to inter-twine with the main story line. There are some missing young girls from years ago, a missing homeless guy that left his family that may or may not have killed one of those missing girls etc.



**CONTAINS SPOILERS**

I wouldn't say that it's one of the most complex and well thought out plots I've ever read. There were some holes where I feel MHC had a good idea but didn't really think it all through and answer all the questions that are raised. The characters did seem a bit stereotypical and flat. Typical new-york pretty girls from rich families that have skeletons in the cupboards. There are love interests to comfort the pretty girls in their times of need and they somehow all end up within the same plot link-ups.

I will say though that I wasn't fully expecting that ending, and that is why I gave the book three stars (it otherwise would have got two). All the way through the book I did suspect the girls' father as being crooked. It was pretty obvious that we were being lead towards him...also...the title is Daddy's Gone A-Hunting so....But I genuinely did not even think for a second that he could have possibly been the dead brother. It does bring a lot of the questions together nicely and for that I give MHC kudos.

Over all I would recommend this book if you want something easy and fluffy to read on a train journey, just to keep you occupied. It's definitely NOT something that you should delve into if you're used to reading Kathy Reichs or James Patterson however.

Have you read this book? Discuss!