Watch CBS News

New Thriller From Mary Higgins Clark

The many devoted fans of suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark will be flocking to book stores tomorrow, for the arrival of her latest thriller, "Two Little Girls in Blue."

The story begins when Steve and Margaret Frawley come home one night to find that their 3-year-old twins, Kelly and Kathy, have been kidnapped. The kidnappers are demanding an $8 million ransom and, while the girls' parents debate their response, the criminals' plan takes a terrifying turn. Soon, the twins' fate depends on a phenomenon that no one can explain: telepathy.

Clark's books are world-wide blockbusters, and have sold more than 80 million copies just in the United States. She is the author of 24 previous suspense novels and she joined The Early Show Monday to talk about this latest book and her amazing career.

Asked by co-anchor Hannah Storm how she came up with this story line, Clark said it's a topic she has always found fascinating.

"I always like the psychic connection. I think the psychic connection is something everybody's intrigued by it," she said. "And then I read something about twin telepathy, a long time ago, where a 3-year-old falls and his sister starts crying, even though she's a block away. And I started to follow that up, and the more I followed it, the more I realized that when you have identical twins, the telepathy can be so strong, that literally when one dies the other will die a few hours later."

Clark said she has found examples of telepathy that made her think of a scenario where, "only the mother will believe that the one they think is dead is alive, and communicating with their twin."

In the case of Clark's Frawley twins, the connection goes even beyond psychic connections. "They are so close and they were actually conjoined. They had a little strip of skin between their fingers. So they were conjoined when they were born. And they can see each other. Where they are and what they're doing."

In the book, the parents are told that one of their girls is dead, but her twin sister continues to receive telepathic messages, which only the mother believes.

"The FBI is saying she's just reliving the experience," explained Clark. But "she's saying, she's alive, she's alive."

Clark says the secret to her best-selling success is simply that "I tell a good story," she told Storm. "I'm a good Irish story-teller."

Her life story has also been an inspiration to many. Widowed at a young age with five children to raise, she would wake up at 5 in the morning to write for a couple of hours before getting the children off to school. And many years later, she still sticks to those early bird hours.

"It's the best time," she told Storm. "Nobody phones at that hour. You make a pot of coffee and turn up the heat. And realize you have at least two hours before the world comes in. And then I could sink into it."

Clark eventually remarried and, with the combined families, she and her husband have 16 grandchildren. And she explained to Storm why even younger readers are learning to appreciate her work.

"I've never used sex or violence. I think it's scarier to be in a lonely room and hear the footsteps on the stairs," she said. "Think of 'Psycho.' That 14 seconds is still considered the best and scariest. You never saw the knife touch her. Your mind was watching him coming toward her. You saw a silhouette moving, and then you saw blood running into the drain."

And Hitchcock's model has worked for her books. "You didn't have to see all the explosive business because you involved your mind in it. And I like to involve my reader's mind."

To read an excerpt from "Two Little Girls in Blue," click here.

Simon & Schuster and CBSNews.com are both owned by the CBS Corporation.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.