All spoilers for previous Under Suspicion novels will be unmarked
Piece of My Heart is a 2020 crime suspense novel by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke. It's the seventh Under Suspicion novel and was the final book in the series until 2024's It Had To Be You. It's also notable for being one of the last books Mary Higgins Clark wrote before her death; it was posthumously published ten months later.
Laurie Moran and Alex Buckley are preparing for their wedding when disaster strikes: Alex's seven-year-old nephew Johnny Buckley is abducted in broad daylight while the family are vacationing together in the Hamptons. When it comes to light the abduction may be connected to an old case investigated by Laurie's father, Laurie is quick to recruit the rest of the Under Suspicion team, desperate to find her missing nephew-to-be.
Darren Gunther has spent the last eighteen years in prison for stabbing to death popular bar owner Lou "Finn" Finney during a brawl. Leo Farley headed the investigation and got Darren to confess, but Darren now claims Leo fabricated the confession to further his own career. Matters are complicated by the fact recent forensic testing of the knife found DNA left by another man, a violent criminal named Mason Rollins. Darren has many devoted supporters, a few of whom may be fanatical enough to abduct a child to manipulate Leo into recanting, especially as Laurie begins to suspect the kidnapper may have taken Johnny after mistaking him for her own son, Timmy.
There's also a potential connection to Johnny's own past; he was adopted as a newborn, with his biological father's identity being a mystery and his birth mother tragically dying six months ago. With various clues pointing in different directions, Laurie and the team must work against the clock to unravel the mystery and find Johnny before it's too late.
Tropes found in this novel include:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: The novel was completed and published in 2020, while being set in July 2015, five years earlier.
- Act of True Love: Daniel realises that even though Marcy isn't related to his son Johnny by blood, she truly loves him as her own when she shields Johnny from Daniel and begs him to let Johnny go, even if he still kills her. Daniel is genuinely shocked that Marcy is willing to die for Johnny even though he "isn't even hers" and realises that she's a far better parent to Johnny than he could ever be, prompting Daniel to let them both leave safely.
- Bear Trap: Johnny's kidnapper places a hidden bear trap at his backdoor, both to prevent anyone sneaking in or Johnny from escaping. Leo ends up stepping on it and injures his leg, forcing Laurie to confront Daniel alone to save Marcy and Johnny.
- Clear Their Name: Although her primary motive for investigating Darren Gunther is to find out if he was involved in the kidnapping of Johnny Buckley, part of Laurie wants to take on the case to vindicate her father due to Darren's claims Leo coerced and fabricated his murder confession, with Laurie insisting her father is not the kind of cop who would ever do something like that. She helps prove not only that her father was telling the truth, but that Darren is responsible for another murder too.
- Connected All Along:
- The Buckleys and Michelle Carpenter both turn out to have a connection to Roseanne Robinson, the woman prominently featured in the prologue; their children are half-siblings because Michelle unwittingly had an affair with Roseanne's then-husband Daniel Turner. Michelle chose to put up her son for adoption after learning Daniel was already married and the baby was adopted by Marcy and Andrew Buckley.
- After seeing his picture featured on news coverage of Johnny's kidnapping, Samantha Finney tells Laurie that she and her husband recognise Toby Carver; he had been at an 80s-themed party attended by Samantha and Clarissa three months ago and was particularly interested in Clarissa, dancing and flirting with her all night. Samantha and her husband got him to back off after he became overly-pushy trying to get Clarissa to leave with him. A few nights later, Clarissa died in a car wreck. Laurie, Leo and the team realise it's way too big a coincidence that a known associate of Darren Gunther, the man convicted of murdering Clarissa's boss eighteen years ago, just so happened to be trying to get her alone at a party, and that she wound up dead not long after.
- Distant Prologue: The prologue takes place five years before the main events of the story. It centres around a woman named Roseanne who is anxiously waiting to hear news of her husband after he was in an accident. It's made clear that it will have relevance to the abduction of Johnny Buckley years later, though how the two events are connected is left a mystery until much later in the story.
- Dramatic Irony: In the prologue, Roseanne privately bargains that if her husband lives, she will change her surname to his just like he always wanted. She later reveals she did change her surname because her husband lived, but she changed it to something completely different to hide because her husband became increasingly abusive after his accident.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After nearly two weeks of the protagonists working non-stop to find Johnny, they manage to rescue him and he's safely reunited with his family. The novel ends with Laurie and Alex finally getting married, with their closest friends and family in attendance, and starting a new chapter of their lives together.
- Extremely Short Time Span: The bulk of the plot takes place over nine hectic days, with the exception of the prologue (which is set five years earlier), a single chapter depicting the murder of Lou Finney (set eighteen years earlier) and the epilogue (which takes place five weeks after the climax).
- Foreshadowing:
- It's noted at the end of the prologue that the accident Roseanne's husband suffered set off a chain of dominoes ending in Johnny Buckley, with the connection being gradually revealed over the course of the novel.
- When Laurie meets Samantha Finney to discuss her father's murder, Samantha off-handedly mentions that Clarissa always wondered what would've happened if the friend Darren was hanging out with hadn't left the bar before the fight broke out. This piques Laurie's interest because as far as she knew Darren had been drinking alone that night - besides pestering female patrons - but Samantha doesn't know anymore details, while Clarissa isn't in a position to answer Laurie's questions because she died three months ago. The man Clarissa saw with Darren at the bar turns out to be the key to unravelling his attempt to proclaim his innocence and the reason Clarissa is dead.
- I Have Your Wife: Leo fears that Darren Gunther arranged for Johnny to be kidnapped - with it being possible the kidnapper mistook him for Leo's grandson Timmy - in order to force him to admit he fabricated Darren's murder confession eighteen years ago; Leo has steadfastly stuck to his story, so he and the Under Suspicion team consider it a very real possibility that Darren may have gone down this route to get what he wants, knowing Leo would do anything to protect his family. It turns out that neither Darren or his supporters took Johnny, with the real kidnapper's motive being very different. Darren was happy to let Leo and the team think he'd taken Johnny, though.
- It's Personal: The Grand Finale of the Under Suspicion series (at least until It Had To Be You was announced) is deeply personal to the team; Alex's nephew is kidnapped on the eve of he and Laurie's wedding and there may be a connection to an older case investigated by Laurie's father Leo, with the convicted killer proclaiming his innocence and accusing Leo of falsifying his confession.
- Missing Child: The plot revolves around the Under Suspicion team trying to find Johnny Buckley, the seven-year-old nephew-to-be of producer Laurie Moran, after he is kidnapped.
- Questionable Consent: Michelle and Daniel's relationship was questionable given that Michelle emphatically stated she would never have been with him if she'd known he was married; Daniel intentionally mislead her about this, such as never inviting her to his office (where his co-workers knew he was married with a child, and where his wife would sometimes visit him) and going along with her ideas about them getting married and having children once she'd graduated. Michelle ghosted him when she realized the truth and was consumed with guilt over it, to the point it contributed to her getting addicted to heroin. Daniel also acknowledges that he was being deceitful and let things go on too long, though he's more concerned about the potential impact on his marriage than Michelle's feelings.
- Red Herring:
- Marcy and Andrew consider the possibility that Johnny's birth mother Michelle could have kidnapped Johnny due to changing her mind about the adoption. They go as far as contacting Father Horrigan, who helped organise the adoption, for help. He in turn contacts Michelle's mother Sandra, but she tells Father Horrigan and the Buckleys that Michelle died of an overdose six months earlier. They later note that Sandra could've lied and that they have no other proof Michelle is dead besides her word, only for the Philadelphia Police Department to confirm Michelle's death. However, this opens up another line of inquiry, due to Michelle's neighbour (who found the body) being convinced Michelle was actually murdered.
- Laurie and her team consider the possibility someone may have kidnapped Johnny after mistaking him for Timmy; it's noted they have similar features (light hair and brown eyes), Johnny's sisters could've been overheard referring to Johnny as "Timmy" due to him acting out Timmy's part for the upcoming wedding and one of the last public photos of Timmy was taken a few years ago when he was about the same age as Johnny is now. Summer and Toby Carver were both in the area when Johnny went missing and both Summer and Darren Gunther give hints they took Johnny to force Leo into 'admitting' he falsified Darren's murder confession. Toby also owns a remotely-located house that would be ideal to hide a child. However, it turns out that the Carver siblings never went near Johnny or Timmy, though they pretended they did on Darren's orders to manipulate a confession from Leo. This leads the protagonists to conclude that Johnny truly was the kidnapper's target all along and Darren had nothing to do with it.
- The protagonists consider whether Sandra Carpenter helped take Johnny, because she lost her daughter six months ago and tells Marcy and Andrew that she considers her grandson to be all she has left of Michelle. Johnny's kidnapper also appears to have a female accomplice. Sandra has nothing to do with the kidnapping, nor does Daniel have an accomplice; he sometimes mimics his ex-wife's voice while hallucinating conversations with her.
- Mason Rollins' DNA was recently found on the handle of the knife used to kill Lou Finney, with Darren Gunther and his supporters insisting this is grounds for Darren's murder conviction to be overturned. Mason lived just fifteen minutes away from Finn's at the time of the murder. He also has convictions for assault, including non-fatally stabbing someone during a fight, and has refused to be interviewed by both Darren's lawyer and the DA. It turns out that the knife originally belonged to Mason and he gave it to Darren - who is a close friend of his - as a birthday gift the night Finn was killed, which is why his DNA is on the handle. Darren was aware of this when he had the knife tested for touch DNA evidence and was prepared to implicate Mason to free himself, knowing he'd be a perfect alternative suspect. He promised Mason a cut of his court settlement once he was released, which is why Mason kept quiet about his connection to Darren (though he realises in hindsight Darren was probably setting him up).
- The Reveal:
- Johnny wasn't the result of a one night stand with a stranger as his birth mother claimed; he was actually born of an affair (unwitting on Michelle's part) with Daniel Turner, the husband of Roseanne Robinson who was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident in the prologue. He's also the one who kidnapped Johnny; the accident gave him brain damage to his frontal cortex, making him impulsive, delusional, easily angered and dangerously unstable. This resulted in his wife leaving him and taking their daughter with her, so when Daniel discovered he had a long-lost son, he became obsessed with getting him back.
- Mason Rollins - the man whose DNA was found on the knife that killed Lou Finney - did own the knife and was at Finn's bar on the night of the murder. He's actually a childhood friend of Darren's and gave him the knife as a birthday gift, then left the bar before the fight that resulted in Finn's murder. Darren and Toby had persuaded Mason to keep quiet about his personal connection to Darren and him gifting Darren the knife, promising him a cut of Darren's compensation pay-out once his conviction was overturned, but Mason had mentioned that the bartender, Clarissa DeSanto, could be a problem because she'd seen Mason and Darren having drinks together and saw him leave early. Clarissa conveniently died in a car accident not long after.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Marcy and Andrew turn out to be correct in their belief a member of Johnny's biological family took him, but they were fixated on it either being his biological mother (who they learn is actually dead) or his biological grandmother. It turns out he was kidnapped by his biological father, whose identity was initially thought to be a mystery.
- Shout-Out:
- In the prologue, Roseanne finds herself thinking of the line "If I only could, I'd make a deal with God" from Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" as she prays for her husband's recovery.
- After spending seven hours on the road with her seven-year-old son and four-year-old daughters, Marcy says "she would leave this world a happy woman if she never heard another round of that "Baby Shark" song again".
- Lindsay tells Laurie that Sandra treated Michelle as though she "was marked by a scarlet A for the rest of time", due to Michelle having gotten pregnant from a one night stand.
- Spotting the Thread: In the climax, Marcy realises something isn't adding up because the supposed FBI agent she's meeting with is wearing his gun in his waistband rather than a halter and is insisting she follow him into the woods to reach her son's location. She realises he isn't acting like a proper agent, that there's no reason for her to be here unless her son had already been retrieved and that nothing about the situation makes sense; she'd just been so frantic to find Johnny it wasn't until now she stopped to logically think things over. Marcy tries to get back in her minivan, only for the 'agent' to attack her, confirming her suspicion he's actually Johnny's kidnapper.
- Worst Wedding Ever: Laurie and Alex are forced to postpone their wedding due to Alex's young nephew being kidnapped a few days before; a wedding would be inappropriate under the circumstances and they both throw themselves into finding Johnny. Laurie does allow herself a brief moment of sadness when she comes across her wedding dress hanging in the closet on what should've been her wedding day. Alex also tries to cheer Laurie up by having their wedding flowers sent to their apartment instead of their honeymoon suite, as it was too late to cancel the order outright. They get a do-over in the epilogue, with everything going smoothly this time.
- You Remind Me of X: When Marcy pleads with Daniel Turner to kill her if he has to but to spare her son (also physically putting herself between them), it reminds Daniel of his ex-wife Roseanne and his ex-lover Michelle (the latter of whom is Johnny's biological mother), who both pleaded with him not to harm their children as he threatened them. It actually snaps Daniel out of his homicidal madness long enough that he decides to spare both Marcy and Johnny, as realises how much Marcy loves Johnny despite not being his birth mother.
