She grew up reading Nancy Drew, but Carol Higgins Clark's major influence as a writer came from her mother, Mary Higgins Clark — one of the most famous suspense authors of today.
The daughter watched the mother write, and she learned patience because her mother's first story was rejected 40 times.
Now Carol Higgins Clark is a highly successful novelist in her own right. She writes one book a year, and they all have one-word titles that end with "ed." Beginning in 1992, she wrote "Decked" (about murder on a cruise ship); followed by "Snagged" (murder at a panty-hose convention); "Iced" (in Aspen during the skiing season, many paintings disappear from various chalets); "Twanged" (a mystery about country music); "Fleeced" (about two bizarre deaths and the disappearance of a valuable diamond cache); "Jinxed" (about a search for a missing movie starlet; the investigator looks at boutique wineries and new-age cults); "Popped" (saboteurs threaten the events at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival); and "Burned" (in Hawaii, a dead woman washes up on the beach, wearing a stolen lei that has been missing for 30 years).
Her next one has her consistent major character, Regan Reilly, a private investigator, getting married. The title, quite predictably, is "Hitched."
Struggling to differentiate between her mother's style and her own, Clark said during a telephone interview from her New York home: "My style has more humor, and I have a continuing character — Regan.
"As one reviewer put it, 'Read Mary for the jugular and Carol for the funnybone.' My mother's only continuing character was Elvira, a woman who was always getting into trouble solving crimes. My mother finally killed her off."
In fact, Clark is so focused on humor that if she can make herself laugh while sitting at the computer, she knows she's on the right track. She wants to make her reader feel something, so she reads other mystery writers to keep herself up on the genre.
"I have deadlines," said Clark, "so when I sit down, things start to happen. I can always get something out of a day's work that will move the story forward. I don't want to repeat myself, so it's very challenging to write the first 50 pages. They are the hardest — but writing for me is fun and fulfilling when it's coming along well. But it takes work."
Recently, Clark and her mother have collaborated on writing a holiday novel a year. So far they have published "Deck the Halls," "He Sees You When You're Sleeping" and "The Christmas Thief."
Ironically, Clark, who creates characters for a living, also likes to portray characters in plays or films. "I started out re-typing my mother's books for her, then I started reading her books on tape (it only takes a couple of days to record an audio book) — then I started acting."
In fact, Clark studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. She starred in "Who Killed Amy Lang?" a mini-mystery that aired on "Good Morning, America," and she performed in a Wendy Wasserstein play, "Uncommon Women and Others," in New York's Carnegie Hall. She also played the lead in "A Cry in the Night," a film based on a novel by Mary Higgins Clark that was shown at the Cannes TV festival, the Montreal Film Festival and on American television.
If you go
What: Carol Higgins Clark
Where: Airport Hilton Hotel
When: Saturday, 10 a.m.
How much: League of Utah Writers members, $125; non-members, $199
Web: www.luwrite.com
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com