Do You Want to Know a Secret?
Mary Jane Clark puts her credentials as a TV news producer and her  family ties to thriller writer Mary Higgins Clark to good use in this debut thriller. Taking the reader inside the high-stakes, back-stabbing world of television, she introduces an appealing heroine, Eliza Blake. Eliza is a young widow and single mother on her way up at Key News; she's as perky as Katie Couric and as clever as Jane Pauley. When anchorman Bill Kendall commits suicide, everyone is stunned--except his rival, a reporter who will go to any lengths to make sure Eliza doesn't beat him to Kendall's empty chair on the evening news; and his lover, a senior producer who'll do almost anything to ensure his success. Murder, jealousy, and greed propel the plot, which hinges on Kendall's secret battle with AIDS, his romance with the wife of a presidential candidate, his vulnerable teenage son, a mendacious political operative, and a municipal judge who's willing to kill to get a spot on the Supreme Court in the next administration. Although most of the characters are hardly more than stereotypes (except Kendall and Joy Wingard, his secret love), this is an easy and crisply paced novel, light on suspense and surprise until the neatly packaged ending.--Jane Adams