The Second Time Around: Mary Higgins Clark

Nicholas Spencer, charismatic head of the medical research company Gen-stone, involved in the development of an anti-cancer vaccine, suddenly disappears. His private plane crashes en route to Puerto Rico, but his body is not found. Early results of the vaccine seemed highly promising...yet coinciding with Nicholas Spencer's disappearance comes news that the FDA is denying approval. Then follows the shocking revelation that Spencer had looted Gen-stone of huge sums of money - including the lifetime savings of people who had risked every penny they had. Marcia "Carley" DeCarlo, the thirty-two-year-old columnist for the Wall Street Weekly, is assigned to cover the story. Carley is the stepsister of Spencer's wife Lynn, an aggressive PR woman and socialite - and she neither likes nor trusts her. The day after news of her husband's disappearance hits the headlines, Lynn attends a meeting of Gen-stone stockholders, flaunting expensive clothing and jewelry, indifferent to the anger and despair of those who have lost everything. That night, she narrowly escapes death when her mansion in Bedford, New York, is set on fire. She begs Carley to use her investigative skills to prove that she was not her husband's accomplice. As Carley proceeds with her investigation, she is confronted by seemingly impenetrable questions: Is Nicholas Spencer dead or in hiding? Was he guilty or set up? Why the sudden reversal in medical opinion of the vaccine from recognition to condemnation? And as the facts begin to unfold, she becomes the target of a dangerous group involved in a sinister and fraudulent scheme.