Mahwah Is The Setting For Latest Mary Higgins Clark Murder Mystery

Bestselling suspense author Mary Higgins Clark has set her latest novel, The Lost Years, in Mahwah. According to several published reports and reviews of the book, a Mahwah home becomes a crime scene when a retired professor is found there murdered.

According to the Kirkus book review, the mystery follows several different suspects – a wife suffering from Alzheimer’s, a scorned lover, and a group of archeologists who found out that the professor had a letter that may have been written by Jesus. The professor’s daughter and a few friends work with the Bergen County Police throughout the novel to determine who stole the professor’s life, and the potentially valuable manuscript.

Clark’s official website summarizes the plot as follows:

Biblical scholar Jonathan Lyons believes he has found the rarest of parchments—a letter that may have been written by Jesus Christ. Stolen from the Vatican Library in the 1500s, the letter was assumed to be lost forever.

Now, under the promise of secrecy, Jonathan is able to confirm his findings with several other experts. But he also confides in a family friend his suspicion that someone he once trusted wants to sell the parchment and cash in.

Within days Jonathan is found shot to death in his study. At the same time, his wife, Kathleen, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, is found hiding in the study closet, incoherent and clutching the murder weapon. Even in her dementia, Kathleen has known that her husband was carrying on a long-term affair. Did Kathleen kill her husband in a jealous rage, as the police contend? Or is his death tied to the larger question: Who has possession of the priceless parchment that has now gone missing?

According to her website, Clark and her husband live in Saddle River.