A Stranger is Watching

In her novel A Stranger is Watching (1977), Mary Higgins Clark weaves together several themes overlaying a tense story of kidnapping and a classic race against time scenario.

As the story opens, an unnamed man in a hotel room is watching television. On the morning news show, he listens to an update about Ronald Thompson, who will, in fifty-two hours be the first person to be executed in years. The man watches a young woman Sharon Martin debate the death penalty with Steve Peterson, whose wife, Nina, was murdered by Ronald Thompson. Sharon is very passionately against the restoration of the death penalty, while Steve Peterson argues vehemently in favor of it. The man watching reveals his plan to kidnap Steve Peterson’s son Neil that evening, hiding him in a secret room in Grand Central Station. He had originally planned to kill Sharon Martin when he did so, because she would undoubtedly be watching Neil for her new lover, Steve. However, as he watches, he finds himself attracted to Sharon, imagining she might be in love with him, so he decides to kidnap her as well. Moreover, if she isn’t in love with him, he thinks, then he’ll just leave her there to die with the child when a bomb goes off at 11:30 p.m.