When death shatters the serenity of the exclusive moneyed enclave of Tuxedo Park, New York, Eliza Blake, cohost of the country's premier morning television show KEY to America, is on the scene. While attending a lavish gala at her friends' newly renovated estate, Pentimento, Eliza's host is found dead—a grotesque suicide that is the first act in a macabre and intricately conceived plan to expose the sins of the past involving some of the town's most revered citizens.
Determined to find out the truth, Eliza and her KEY News colleagues—producer Annabelle Murphy, cameraman B.J. D'Elia, and psychiatrist Margo Gonzalez—discover that Pentimento holds the key. Nestled in the park's sprawling architectural masterpieces, picturesque gardeners' cottages, and lush, rolling landscape, the glorious mansion is actually a giant "puzzle house," filled with ingenious clues hidden in its fireplaces, fountains, and frescoes that lead them from one suspicious locale to another—and, one by one, to the victims of a fiendish killer.
As Pentimento gives up its secrets, it becomes clear that no amount of wealth or privilege will keep the residents of Tuxedo Park safe. But just when Eliza unearths one final surprise, she comes face-to-face with a murderer who believes that some puzzles should never be solved.
New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark has written 12 novels, all set in the high stakes world of broadcast journalism. She worked at CBS News headquarters in New York City for three decades, her experience there leading her to create KEY, a fictional television network. What her characters can get involved in as they cover their assignments is as varied as the stories on the morning or evening news. Her media thrillers are published in 22 languages.
Fast-moving, unpredictable, and always changing, the television news world offers a never-ending stream of ideas for Clark's books. Her writing style has been described as "clear and speedy." Influenced by years of writing television news stories, where every second counts, she gets right to the action in her suspense novels, in which every word is a clue.
The assignments Clark has completed in the real news world have informed her writing. Covering the 1992 National Presidential Conventions led to the idea for her first book,Do You Want to Know a Secret? Producing stories on the auction of the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the Princess Diana dress sale planted the seeds forDo You Promise Not to Tell? Assignments to write and produce obituaries on world leaders and entertainment personalities grew to becomeLet Me Whisper in Your Ear. On-air correspondents shared their experiences of being stalked by demented fans forClose to You. Covering an approaching hurricane on Florida's Gulf coast was the premise forNobody Knows. The anthrax scares at all three U.S. network news headquarters in the autumn of 2001 inspiredNowhere to Run. A love for Rhode Island led to the KEY News morning news show spending a week among the historic mansions of Newport inHide Yourself Away.
More recently, the high-profile shuffle of competitive network new anchors led toWhen Day Breaks, and the seed forIt Only Takes a Moment came from childhood memories and fears of the kidnapping cases her father investigated.
The daughter of a FBI agent, Clark grew up in Westwood, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of Rhode Island. She is the mother of two grown children and lives in New Jersey and Florida. She spends her time researching her next novel, writing, concocting new plots while walking the beach, decorating ,and supporting causes close to her heart, including research for a cure or treatment for fragile X syndrome.
