Mary Higgins Clark: I Heard That Song Before

At the center of her novel is Kay Lansing, who has grown up in Englewood, New Jersey, daughter of the landscaper to the wealthy and powerful Carrington family. Their mansion -- a historic seventeenth-century manor house transported stone by stone from Wales in 1848 -- has a hidden chapel. One day, accompanying her father to work, six-year-old Kay succumbs to curiosity and sneaks into the chapel. There, she overhears a quarrel between a man and a woman who is demanding money from him. When she says that this will be the last time, his caustic response is: "I heard that song before."

That same evening, the Carringtons hold a formal dinner dance after which Peter Carrington, a student at Princeton, drives home Susan Althorp, the eighteen-year-old daughter of neighbors. While her parents hear her come in, she is not in her room the next morning and is never seen or heard from again.

Throughout the years, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Peter Carrington. At age forty-two, head of the family business empire, he is still "a person of interest" in the eyes of the police, not only for Susan Althorp's disappearance but also for the subsequent drowning death of his own pregnant wife in their swimming pool.

Kay Lansing, now living in New York and working as a librarian in Englewood, goes to see Peter Carrington to ask for permission to hold a cocktail party on his estate to benefit a literacy program, which he later grants. Kay comes to see Peter as maligned and misunderstood, and when he begins to court her after the cocktail party, she falls in love with him. Over the objections of her beloved grandmother Margaret O'Neil, who raised her after her parents' early deaths, she marries him. To her dismay, she soon finds that he is a sleepwalker whose nocturnal wanderings draw him to the spot at the pool where his wife met her end.

Susan Althorp's mother, Gladys, has always been convinced that Peter Carrington is responsible for her daughter's disappearance, a belief shared by many in the community. Disregarding her husband's protests about reopening the case, Gladys, now terminally ill, has hired a retired New York City detective to try to find out what happened to her daughter. Gladys wants to know before she dies.

Kay, too, has developed gnawing doubts about her husband. She believes that the key to the truth about his guilt or innocence lies in the scene she witnessed as a child in the chapel and knows she must learn the identity of the man and woman who quarreled there that day. Yet, she plunges into this pursuit realizing that "that knowledge may not be enough to save my husband's life, if indeed it deserves to be saved." What Kay does not even remotely suspect is that uncovering what lies behind these memories may cost her her own life.

I Heard That Song Before once again dramatically reconfirms Mary Higgins Clark's worldwide reputation as a master storyteller.

　 来生，我要你再为我死一次……几经轮回的杀人狂魔再度现身……为什么和他有关的少女离奇失踪？为什么他怀孕的娇妻溺死水中？凶手会是他吗？还是另有黑手？同样的作案手法却相隔久远，难道这一切都是巧合吗？想要解开一系列的死亡谜团唯有重回过去的时空连环交错的杀机是过去，也是现在……
《轮回的歌声》是一部引人入胜、令人毛骨悚然的惊悚悬疑小说。克拉克把读者带入了一个充满神秘色彩的人性世界的深处，在这里人的记忆是最为危险的东西……一个恶魔使三名女性的人生纠缠在一起，如今他又回来了，或者，那只是另一个像他的人……女主人公兰辛不顾外婆的反对，与富豪皮特•加林顿疯狂地相爱并结婚了，然而她却不知道一场生与死的考验正在等着她……早在20年以前，妙龄少女神秘失踪，而皮特•加林顿是最后一个与她接触的人，四年以前，皮特的前妻又莫名其妙地溺死水中,这一切直到现在仍是未解之谜。随着剧情的发展，两具尸体浮出水面，地点正是卡林顿家的庄园。而此时……，难道一切是巧合吗？兰辛不敢想下去。

Mary Higgins Clark's books are world-wide bestsellers. In the U.S. alone, her books have sold over one hundred million copies.

She is the author of twenty-nine previous suspense novels. Her first book, a biographical novel about George Washington, was re-issued with the title, Mount Vernon Love Story, in June 2002. Her memoir, Kitchen Privileges, was published by Simon & Schuster in November 2002. Her first children's book, Ghost Ship, illustrated by Wendell Minor, was published in April 2007 as a Paula Wiseman Book/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

She is co-author, with her daughter Carol Higgins Clark, of five holiday suspense novels Deck the Halls (2000), He Sees You When You're Sleeping (2001), The Christmas Thief (2004), Santa Cruise (2006), and Dashing through the Snow (2008).

Mary Higgins Clark was chosen by Mystery Writers of America as Grand Master of the 2000 Edgar Awards. An annual Mary Higgins Clark Award sponsored by Simon & Schuster, to be given to authors of suspense fiction writing in the Mary Higgins Clark tradition, was launched by Mystery Writers of America during Edgars week in April 2001. She was the 1987 president of Mystery Writers of America and, for many years, served on their Board of Directors. In May 1988, she was Chairman of the International Crime Congress.

　 玛丽·希金斯·克拉克(Mary Higgins Clark),当代难得一见的说故事高手，被誉为“美国悬疑小说之后”，曾获美国悬疑推理小说最高荣誉——爱伦·坡大奖之“推理大师奖”。从1956年开始在杂志上发表作品，几乎每一本书都是排行榜上的常胜军，其成名作《消失的蓝衣女孩》造成轰动后，陆续出版有《后会谁说无期》等近三十本悬疑小说、三本短篇故事集、一本历史小说《弗农山爱情故事》，及一本回忆录《厨房的特权》。改编成电影的作品包括《情迷杀机》、《多重杀机》、《前世恨未了》等，都曾在各大媒体及电视频道播映过。目前作品累积销售量仅在美国当地已逾8500万册，持续逼近上亿本大关，堪称当代悬疑小说界重量级大师。
作者获奖殊荣:
作者的图书累积销量在美国已超过8500万册
美国悬疑推理小说最高荣誉爱伦·坡大奖之“推理大师奖”得主
作者受封法国艺术及文学勋章(2000)
作者亦曾荣登法国畅销排行榜第1名作家
美国“推理作家协会”发起以克拉克为名的奖项(2001)
(1994) 纽约曼哈顿国家艺术委员会教育类金奖 (Gold Medal in Education, National Arts Club)
(1998) 法国杜维尔电影节文学奖 (Deauville Film Festival Literary Award)
(2002) 2002年首位读者文摘最佳作者奖(The First Reader’s Digest Author of the Year Award 2002)
(2003) 克里斯朵夫终身成就奖 (Christopher Life Achievement Award)