Daddy’s Little Girl by Mary Higgins Clark
First published on April 16, 2002 by Pocket Books
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
Pages: 384
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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Ellie Cavanaugh was only seven years old when her fifteen-year-old sister, Andrea, was murdered near their home in Oldham-on-the-Hudson, a rural village in New York’s Westchester County. There were three suspects: Rob Westerfield, nineteen-year-old scion of a wealthy, prominent family, whom Andrea has been secretly dating; Paul Stroebel, a sixteen-year-old schoolmate, who had a crush on Andrea; and Will Nebels, a local handyman in his forties.
It was Ellie who had led her parents to a hideout in which Andrea’s body was found — a secret hideaway in which she met her friends. And it was Ellie who was blamed by her parents for her sister’s death for not telling them about this place the night Andrea was missing. It was also Ellie’s testimony that led to the conviction of the man she was firmly convinced was the killer. Steadfastly denying his guilt, he spent the next twenty-two years in prison.
When he comes up for parole, Ellie, now an investigative reporter for an Atlanta newspaper, protests his release. Nonetheless, the convicted killer is set free and returns to Oldham. Determined to thwart his attempts to whitewash his reputation, Ellie also returns to Oldham, intent on creating a Website and writing a book that will conclusively prove his guilt. As she delves deeper into her research, however, she uncovers horrifying and heretofore unknown facts that shed new light on her sister’s murder. With each discovery, she comes closer to a confrontation with a desperate killer.
Review
This book portrayed an emotional story for me. It easily caught my attention because it talks about a father-daughter relationship.
The story circled around a happy family that was ruined by a terrible murder of one of its member. Ellie Cavanaugh, a 7 year old found her older sister Andrea, fifteen-year old, dead in the Westerfield’s garage which she and her friends would call the “hide-out”. The primary suspect was the young Westerfield, a 22 year old son of Westetfield Sr. which is according to Ellie, Andrea was afraid of him. Two days after the funeral, Rob was arrested and was charged with first degree murder.
Twenty three years, Ellie, now 30 years old who lives in Atlanta and works as an investigative journalist in Atlanta News decided to file a leave for the impending parole of Rob after almost 23 years in prison and she would do anything to stop it.
The story is very engrossing. I finished reading it only for a day. I remembered that I can’t do other tasks because I always think about what would happen to the story. By just reading its first few chapters, it is really obvious that Rob was the killer but once you read more and more of the book, you’ll be surprised how it’ll change your guess. I was actually still groping whether Rob was the bad guy or not.
Her style of making you guess is always my favorite. And I liked who Ellie ended up with. And with that, I am happy to tell that I guessed that correctly, for I’m always a sucker for Mary Higgins Clark’s happy ending, yieee.
And with that, I would say that this book is an excellent one to read any time of the day.
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