What happens when a murder mystery meets religious archaeology and the Queen of Suspense is at the wheel? You get eight hours of competent, if familiar, comfort listening—and honestly? Sometimes that's exactly what the night shift ordered.
I finished this one during my drive home from a particularly brutal twelve-hour shift. Three codes, a combative patient, and enough paperwork to make my hand cramp. By 7 AM, I needed something that wouldn't demand too much from my exhausted brain but would keep me awake on the I-10. Mary Higgins Clark delivered. Not her best work, but she delivered.
The Setup That Hooked Me (Despite Myself)
Biblical scholar gets murdered after discovering what might be a letter written by Jesus Christ himself. His daughter Mariah finds him dead at his desk. Mom—an Alzheimer's patient—is found hiding in the closet, clutching the murder weapon. The parchment? Missing. The suspects? A whole circle of academics and clergy who knew about the discovery.
Look, I've read enough Clark to know her playbook. Wealthy New Jersey setting? Check. Daughter investigating when police get it wrong? Check. A cast of suspicious characters with secrets? Triple check. But here's the thing—her formula works. It's like a good procedural TV show. You know the beats, but you still want to see how it plays out.
The Alzheimer's subplot hit different for me. My lola had dementia in her final years, and Clark captures something real about those lucid moments—when someone surfaces briefly from the fog, knowing something terrible has happened but unable to hold onto the memory. Kathleen's confusion, her flashes of jealousy about her husband's affair with the much younger Lily Stewart, the way she can't defend herself because her own mind won't cooperate—that's not just plot convenience. That's heartbreaking accuracy.
Jan Maxwell Keeps the Ship Steady
Jan Maxwell narrates, and she's exactly what you want for this kind of book—evenly paced, professional, able to shift from intimate family moments to cold investigative scenes without jarring you out of the story. She's done multiple Clark audiobooks, and you can tell. There's a rhythm she's developed that just works.
No complaints about pronunciation. No weird choices that made me yell at my dashboard. (Unlike that medical thriller last month where the narrator kept saying "epinephrine" wrong. WRONG. I almost drove off the road.) Maxwell gives you clean, reliable narration that enhances the pacing without calling attention to itself. Speaking of narrators who know their material—If It Bleeds had me yelling at the characters making terrible decisions during a pandemic, not the performance.
Is it a performance that'll stick with me forever? Probably not. But she adds dramatic tension where it counts, and for a mystery with this many characters and POV switches, that matters.
Where It Gets Bumpy
Okay, here's my issue. There are a LOT of characters. Father Aiden O'Brien, the family friend priest. Richard Callahan, the attractive professor (there's always an attractive professor). The other biblical scholars Jonathan consulted. The girlfriend. The daughter's friends. Detectives.
I'm used to tracking multiple patients, their meds, their families, their allergies—my brain is trained for this. But even I found myself rewinding a few times going "wait, which one was that again?" If you're listening while genuinely multitasking—cooking, cleaning, gardening—you might lose the thread. This one needs at least half your attention.
And yes, if you've read ten Mary Higgins Clark novels, you've kind of read this one. The structure is familiar. The twists are... twisty but not shocking. One reviewer called it "the same plot churned out again," and I can't entirely disagree. Summons had that same familiar-but-satisfying feel—legal thriller comfort food when I needed it. But comfort food is comfort food for a reason.
The Hunt for the Holy Letter
The religious artifact angle is interesting, even if it's more MacGuffin than theology lesson. A letter potentially written by Christ, stolen from the Vatican in the fifteenth century, now resurfacing—it's a premise that carries weight without getting preachy. Clark doesn't try to be Dan Brown here. She's not interested in conspiracy theories about what the letter contains. She's interested in who killed Jonathan Lyons and why.
The investigation moves at a steady clip. Mariah's determination to clear her mother while grieving her father gives the book its emotional core. And the resolution, when it comes, plays fair—the clues were there, even if I was too tired to piece them together before the reveal.
Who's This For?
If you're a Mary Higgins Clark fan or need a reliable mystery for long drives, this delivers. Skip it if you want unpredictable twists or can't handle tracking a dozen characters while multitasking.
Clocking Out
Carlos asked why I sat in the driveway for an extra ten minutes before coming inside. I told him I needed to hear the ending. He knows better than to question my audiobook priorities at this point.
Is this Clark's best? No. Is it a solid, reliable mystery that'll get you through a long commute or a quiet night of charting? Absolutely. Jan Maxwell's narration is polished, the plot moves, and the emotional beats—especially around Kathleen's Alzheimer's—land harder than you'd expect from a "formula" thriller.
My mom would love this. She's a sucker for anything with religious artifacts and mother-daughter drama. (She still thinks I should've been a doctor, but she'd approve of my audiobook choices.)
Perfect for that post-shift decompression when you want mystery without having to work too hard for it.
