Book Review: Dashing Through the Snow by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark

Hello, Fellow Book Worms and Book Dragons!

  To celebrate the coming of Spring I returned to Christmas with my latest book that I read- Dashing Through the Snow by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark . 

 

  Since 1995 Mary Higgins Clark has been celebrating the Christmas season with her series of holiday novels. Each one has taken her readers on a suspenseful trip into the world of crime. Beginning with Silent Night, this series of books have been bestsellers many times over. But it was not until 1998's All Through the Night that Clark began to tell holiday tales with her popular characters, Alvirah and Willy Meehan (first introduced in 1987 in Weep No More My Lady). But things really got interesting in 2000's Deck the Halls when Clark teamed up with her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark, to introduce holiday stories featuring the two authors' most popular characters, Alvirah Meehan and Regan Reilly. Many adventures later Dashing Through the Snow was released. And this time the crime-fighting duo are in New Hampshire for a holiday festival. But what they discover there is anything but jolly.


  When the small and scenic town of Branscombe, New Hampshire holds their first annual Festival of Joy, the media is there to cover it. But when a routine purchase of a lottery ticket lands five grocery store workers a $180 million dollar winning prize, the media descends upon the small town in force. Headed there are Alvirah and Willy Meehan, the famous lottery winners. And detectives Regan and Jack Reilly with their family, including Regan's novelist mother, Nora. The town is abuzz with congratulations to the popular workers of Conklin's Market, but happiness turns to worry when one of the winners ends up missing. Soon a search is on for not only the missing winner, but his fiancee who has vanished after arriving to surprise her future groom. Upon arriving Alvirah and Regan become embroiled in a holiday caper involving murder, kidnapping, and fraud. This was definitely not on their Christmas lists.

  Dashing Through the Snow was a fast read that zipped along. It was predictable at times, but held my interest and occasionally tossed in a few surprising revelations. I found the ending happened a bit quicker than I had hoped. I felt that this book could have benefited from at least one more chapter to flesh out the ending better. This was my first novel of the Clarks' that I have read featuring Alvirah and Regan. I enjoyed the sleuths, and at the end of this book I was looking forward to reading more about these characters. The supporting cast added a lot of fun to the story, especially lottery winner, Glenda, who was trying to shake her ex-husband as he tried to get back together with her because she was newly rich. 

   I read this novel in part with the audio book with narration by the author, Carol Higgins Clark. The presentation had a few flaws that made reading without the book confusing. Many words and numbers were different from the physical book. This made me believe this was read from an earlier version. The narration also never told me the chapter that was being read. The audio book's organization was off, with there being only five chapters. The book actually has forty three chapters, so trying to find last the chapter I had read with the audio book was tedious. I ended up abandoning the audio version and read the physical book.

  I gave this book a three out of five stars. It was very predictable, and the ending could have slowed down a bit more. But I did like the characters, and I was interested in reading more about them in the future. From what I have been told, I have many more adventures with Alvirah and Regan to enjoy.


 Because there is always time to read,
  Xepherus3   
 

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