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| Before I Say Good-Bye | 
 enlarge | Author: Mary Higgins Clark
Publisher: Pocket
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  134 reviews
Sales Rank: 97067
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 3.9 x 1.5
ISBN: 0671004573
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780671004576
ASIN: 0671004573
Publication Date: April 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Mary Higgins Clark's 22nd romantic thriller is destined for bestsellerdom on the strength of her reputation alone. Which is not to say that Before I Say Good-Bye doesn't have a bit of all the ingredients of the Clark genre: a little mystery, a likable heroine, and even a nice guy who turns up midway through the novel and promises her romance and a second chance at happiness. But while the set-up is promising and the bare essentials of a compelling read are all here, only readers who are already Higgins fans will be kept completely spellbound. Nell MacDermott is the politically ambitious granddaughter of a canny politician in Manhattan's silk stocking district, and her grandfather wants her to run for his old congressional seat. But there are rumors that Adam Cauliff, Nell's husband, has been involved in a real estate and construction scam, and until Nell gets to the bottom of this her political future will be clouded. When Adam and his assistant are killed in an explosion aboard his boat, Nell is determined to clear his name. Nudged into action by her nascent psychic powers and a medium who may be her only link to Adam, Nell learns more about her husband's mysterious past than she bargained for and--naturally--stumbles onto a conspiracy that puts her own life in danger. The narrative seems more like an outline for a novel than a novel itself; the characters are sketched rather than fully explored--particularly Nell, whose back story doesn't provide enough information to make her actions understandable. But the pacing is expert, and Clark's dedicated fans will doubtless forgive her for not making this her strongest outing. --Jane Adams
Product Description
A young woman probing into the mysterious circumstances of her husband's death receives a message from a medium claiming to be his channel in Mary Higgins Clark's #1 bestselling thriller, BEFORE I SAY GOOD-BYE. When Nell MacDermott learns that her husband, architect Adam Cauliff, and three of his business associates have died in an explosion of his new cabin cruiser, she is not only devastated but wracked with guilt. The last time she saw Adam, they had a bitter quarrel over her plan to run for the congressional seat long held by her grandfather; she had told him not to come home. As the investigation into the boat's explosion proceeds, Nell learns that it was not an accident but a bomb. Despite her skepticism, Nell is swayed by her great-aunt Gert, a believer in psychic powers, to see a medium claiming to be Adam's channel. While trying to unravel the threads of Adam's past and his violent end, Nell consults the medium, who transmits messages to her with instructions from Adam. The story reaches a powerful climax in Nell's final encounter with the medium, in which she learns the truth about the explosion -- truth she can't be allowed to live and tell.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 129 more reviews...
 suspenful January 12, 2008
well this book is packed with action and suspence. I felt like if I was watching a movie,very fast paced. It is a definite page turner. This is a must read book.
 lackluster September 23, 2007
I am a huge Mary Higgins Clark fan. I love to read her books in between some of the more intellectual books that I read b/c they are riveting page-turners with a complex plot...usually. I picked this book up at the supermarket and was excited to hear that there may be a supernatural twist. Not only is this incredibly downplayed throughout the book, but there is a sense of repetition that was slammed home by the following exchange. On page 223 of the paperback Nell is speaking to detectives about a safe deposit box to which a key has been found. She says, "Can't you take it to the bank and find out there?" They explain the difficulties of finding a box without knowledge of the bank where it is located. The repetition occurs on page 291 where the detectives visit Nell's home and speak to her about the box as if it is the first time (i.e. a new discovery). She says again, "Can't you just take it to the bank that issued it and find out what is in the lock box?" Prior to this, I felt time and again that the feelings of the characters and the facts of the story were being unnecessarily repeated. I always liked Ms. Clark for her wit and quickness and I don't enjoy being written to as if I were a small child. It makes me question whether this book had ever been edited. She claims her long-time editor is Michael Korda, and I wonder if he somehow dropped the ball on this one. Ms. Clark is truly the Queen of Suspense, but this book should be erased from her C.V. The supernatural suggestions are misleading and should have taken the place of the constant reiteration of the facts and feelings surrounding the main characters. All in all, a dud.
Kept me interested June 29, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I still don't know if I like the grandfather. He is controlling and a little stuck up. The storyline and plot went well and I stayed interested throughout this book. So, I gave it a modest ranking. I really wish that I could have learned some more about how the boat was blown up exactly. It is amazing that someone that you know for such a long time can turn out to be your enemy.
Unsteady, but a good suspense thriller February 23, 2007
Nell MacDermott, granddaughter of Congressman Cornelius MacDermott, has had psychic premonitions for as long as she could remember. One day her husband Adam Cauliff, with whom she had argued that morning, held an architectural discussion aboard his boat with a few associates. While he, Winifred Johnson, Jimmy Ryan, and Sam Krause were on board, the boat suddenly exploded. All four were reported dead, but only Krause and Ryan's deaths could be proved. Meanwhile, Nell was struggling to cope with the loss of her husband, and her grandmother suggested that she see the famous Bonnie Wilson, a renowned psychic. She hoped that it would help give her closure on the matter. After her visit, Nell was completely convinced that Bonnie was a true psychic, and that she had really spoken to Adam through Bonnie. But the two detectives on the case, Brennan and Sclafani, found new evidence to suggest that the explosion had been set by someone on the boat who had somehow escaped. The suspects were quickly narrowed down to the unconfirmed dead, Winifred and Adam. Nell was having an even more difficult time coping after this news, and she resorted to clearing their apartment of anything reminding her of Adam, except the blue blazer that he was supposed to have worn the day of the explosion. A safety deposit box key found in his coat pocket further connected him to Winifred, and the detectives soon deduced that he was the person seen escaping from the burning boat, and that it was a real possibility that he was still alive. But the detectives unearthed some background on Adam Cauliff that unnerved Nell to the point where she felt she had to go to Bonnie to contact Adam in the spirit world for answers. While she was there, Adam came up behind her, shot her, then bound her and lit the room on fire in hopes that she'd burn alive. But she was too smart for that. Nell crawled over to the window, broke it, and cut her bonds on the broken glass. She was then able to try to escape out the window and let the police on the ground know that she was up there. Adam and Bonnie's combined weight on the old fire escape was too much, and it collapsed with them on it, killing the both of them on impact with the ground. Nell escaped, burned and cut, but alive, and she succeeded in winning the election to Congress and followed in her grandfather's footsteps.
Before I Say Good-Bye was a good suspense thriller, though it lacked a solid plot.
The characters in this novel were well-developed and quite life-like, though their actions were somewhat predictable. Mary Higgins Clark has a certain indescribable way that she unfolds her characters, and this technique comes through in all of her books. But the only problem I have found is that she often reveals a little too much about one person, and this person is usually the culprit in the story. This excess information leads me to know that this person is the real guilty party in the story. Conversely, this characteristic could help her to write the best thriller she's ever written. She could get her readers used to the way she unfolds the story, then *Boom* she could throw a monkey wrench into the pattern. Her readers would be astounded! It would be a perfect idea for the "Queen of Suspense" to use in a brand-new thriller.
In the other books of hers I have read, the plot was fairly stable and easy to follow. But in this novel, the plot was very unstable and shifted around a lot. That's not to say that it wasn't a good book, it was just a more difficult read than most of hers that I've read. The plot jumped around a lot, and switched points-of-view so often that I was left saying, "What?! When did that happen to her? Oh, wait, that's someone else."
In conclusion, Before I Say Good-Bye was an interesting thriller by the Queen of Suspense, but it wasn't thoroughly complete, in that it was slightly tough to follow. I would definitely recommend this book for any fans of Mary Higgins Clark, but not for someone new to her works.
-C. Edwards
 Just terrible writing February 19, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Quite honestly, I just can't understand how people can actually enjoy this drival. Not worth your time unless you are a devoted Mary Higgins Clark fan.
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