Literature / A Cry in the Night

A Cry in the Night is a 1982 psychological thriller novel by Mary Higgins Clark.

Jenny MacPartland is a twenty-six year old divorcee who struggles to support her two young daughters while working a low-paying job at a New York art gallery. It doesn’t help that her grandmother – her only other living family – passed away three months ago, while her ex-husband Kevin is irresponsible at the best of times. Then she meets Erich Krueger, an up-and-coming artist with a new exhibit at Jenny’s gallery. He’s handsome, charming, considerate, hard-working, wealthy...and he quickly becomes enamoured with Jenny. Before long, Jenny herself is head-over-heels and agrees to become Erich’s wife.

Erich whisks Jenny and her daughters away from their cramped New York apartment to his country mansion in Minnesota. They’re initially happy, but it isn’t long until cracks start to show. Erich is devoted to her, yet Jenny finds herself troubled by his obsessive mourning for his late mother Caroline – to whom Jenny bears a strong resemblance and whose presence still permeates the house – and his habit of going off to his cabin to paint for days on end. And while Erich is beloved in his small hometown, Jenny very much feels like an outsider, even in her own home. As time passes, Jenny starts to sense there is something seriously wrong with her new husband. Something that could put both her and her children in grave danger...

Not to be confused with the 1956 film A Cry in the Night, or the film A Cry in the Dark.

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Tropes found in this novel include:

• The Alcoholic: The former Krueger handyman Josh Brothers has had problems with alcohol for decades and is visibly drunk the first time Jenny meets him. Erich Krueger and his late father both insisted Josh was drunk the day Caroline died and that's why he left the lamp next to the stock tank plugged in and unsecured. However, his sister Maud says Josh only began drinking heavily after Caroline's death, because everyone blamed him for the accident. 
• Ancestral Name: All the men in the Krueger family going back four generations bear the first name Erich, with some of them going by their middle names to avoid confusion (e.g. Erich's father's full name was Erich John Krueger and he tended to be called John). When Jenny finds out she's pregnant with a son, she and Erich plan to name him Erich Krueger V. However, Jenny discovers that Erich put "Kevin" on the birth certificate instead. Erich claims it's because he wasn't certain the baby would survive and wanted to save the name Erich for a living child, but it's all but stated he actually did it because he's convinced Jenny's ex-husband Kevin is the real father.
• And This Is for...: Rooney declares "For Arden" after shooting Erich to save Jenny, having learned that Erich murdered her daughter.
• Artists Are Attractive: One of the things that attracts Jenny to Erich is his incredible artistic skills; she admires the way he can convey so much deep emotion and sensitivity in his works. Too bad it's all a lie.
• Awful Wedded Life:
  • Jenny's marriage to Erich becomes increasingly unbearable and suffocating, due to his controlling and jealous nature becoming more pronounced and Jenny's growing sense of isolation. They've barely been married a year before Jenny has had enough, but Erich isn't willing to let her go so easily.
  • It's revealed that Caroline's marriage to Erich's father was miserable for her. He was known for being a cold and controlling man who discouraged her from painting, saying she had no talent for it and should do a 'useful' hobby like knitting. Jenny learns that Caroline had been planning on leaving her husband and returning to her parents before she died. Then there's the fact that John never took Caroline seriously when she expressed concern for their son's mental state, refusing to get him help and even saying it was Caroline's fault for 'spoiling' him. It's also telling that she signed all her artwork as Caroline Bonardi (her maiden name) rather than Caroline Krueger.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Erich shoots Joe's puppy, who had gotten loose and was running around the property. He claims it was because he thought it was a stray and might hurt Beth and Tina, but Jenny isn't completely convinced and it's implied he actually did it because the puppy trampled some of the flowers on Caroline's grave. It's implied that he was involved in the disappearance of Joe's other dog, which also had a habit of escaping onto Krueger land. He also poisons his horse Baron to drive him mad, then blames it on Joe and Jenny.
• Babies Make Everything Better:
  • When Jenny discovers she's pregnant a few months into her new marriage, she's overjoyed and thinks this will bring her and Erich even closer. However, Erich's increasingly disturbing behavior makes her initially reluctant to share the news with him despite her insisting to herself the new baby will make their relationship better. She's horribly wrong; Erich's behavior only becomes more extreme as her pregnancy progresses (partly because he isn't fully convinced he's the father) and Jenny going into premature labor from stress worsens the situation. The baby's death is what ultimately turns Jenny against Erich.
  • Following their infant son's death, Erich tries to invoke this with Jenny, badgering her into having sex with him so they can conceive a child, which he believes will repair the growing rift in their marriage. Jenny finally agrees to have sex with him, but in her mind their marriage is so broken at this point nothing will fix it, least of all a child especially as their son hasn't been dead long and Erich barely seems to have grieved at all. It's implied that Erich actually thinks that impregnating Jenny will prevent her from leaving him.
• Batman Gambit: Jenny plots to lure Erich out in the open by dressing up as Caroline and sitting on the swing outside the house at sunset, just as Caroline did in her painting. She knows Erich is watching her from the woods and hopes the sight of his ‘mother’ will draw him out. It works almost too well: Erich comes charging out of the woods and starts chasing Jenny with a gun.
• Belated Love Epiphany: Kevin only appears to realize how much his ex-wife and their daughters mean to him when Erich comes into the picture; he realizes that Jenny isn't just going to sit around waiting for him forever (especially as in her mind they'd never get back together) and that Jenny wants Beth and Tina to be raised by Erich. Kevin showed little interest in being a father prior to this, but is genuinely upset at the thought of losing the girls, to the point of moving to Minnesota to fight to retain custody and stay involved in their lives.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the climax, Erich has Jenny cornered at gunpoint and is about to pull the trigger when Rooney creeps up behind him and puts a bullet in him first, saving Jenny's life.
• Big Fancy House: Erich lives in a huge country mansion with at least twenty rooms, that has been in his family for generations going back to the 1800s. Jenny is awed - and a little intimidated - when she first sees it, as she'd been picturing a little farmhouse or cottage when Erich told her he lived on a ranch. Jenny ends up giving it to a local historical society in the end, never wanting to set foot there again after everything that transpired.
• Bittersweet Ending: Jenny’s ex-husband and baby son were both murdered by Erich, and she and her daughters clearly have some trauma to work through. But they all came out of it alive and they’re settling into their new lives with Mark’s support; it’s implied he and Jenny may become a couple in the future and he’s a vast improvement as both a romantic partner and a father figure. Arden is revealed to have dead all this time but at least her parents finally have some closure; Rooney in particular is a lot more stable after discovering the truth. Although she never lived to see it, the world will also finally know what a brilliant artist Caroline Bonardi was.
• The Bride with a Past: Erich jokes about Jenny being this when Jenny's ex-husband starts causing trouble for them, causing gossip about Jenny to spread through the town like wildfire (namely that she lied about being widowed to marry the wealthy Erich and is carrying on with her ex). In truth though, Jenny was always completely honest about her background to Erich and he's the one with the dark and secretive past.
• Chase Scene: The climax features one. After Jenny successfully lures Erich out of the woods, he runs at her with a gun. She tries to get back inside the house but realizes when she closed the door it automatically locked from the inside, trapping her outside. She's forced to run across the ranch towards the barn while Erich chases her, shooting at her and managing to graze her arm with a bullet.
• Chekhov's Gun: Rooney mentions in passing that she once made dark blue curtains for the Kruegers' living room at the late John Krueger's request, despite her saying the colour wouldn't suit the room. She adds that John came to agree and gave the curtains back. The painting depicting Tina and Beth strangled features dark blue curtains; when Rooney sees this, she quickly explains that she gave the curtains to the Garretts, who wanted them for the guest room of their fishing lodge several miles away in Duluth; Erich has been to the lodge many times and has a key, so it's likely this is where Erich is keeping the girls. The police immediately head over there and are able to rescue the girls from the roadside before they succumb to a snowstorm.
• Childhood Friend:
  • Mark Garrett, a local veterinarian who tends the animals on Krueger Farm, is a lifelong friend of Erich's; they grew up together and Erich regards Mark as the brother he never had. As such, Mark is often over at the farm or house and becomes close with Jenny. Unfortunately, this makes Erich jealous and he tries to distance Jenny from Mark, with not even Erich's best friend of three decades being free from his suspicions (admittedly, Mark does have feelings for Jenny that go beyond friendship, but he'd never act upon them out of respect for Erich).
  • Mark's father Luke Garrett had a similar decades' long friendship with Erich's father John and so Luke knew Erich from birth. It also means Luke has been aware for years that Erich has always been a deeply troubled and disturbed person, beyond simply being traumatised by his mother's death, so unlike many other people in Granite Place he believes Jenny when she voices concerns about Erich's behavior and warns his own son about it.
• Children Are Innocent: A horrifying example occurs with Beth late in the story. During her baby brother's funeral, Beth tells her mother she saw "Jenny" dressed in a green shawl leaning over the baby's cot the night he died. It's later revealed that Beth very likely unknowingly witnessed her stepfather murdering her brother and attempting to frame Jenny.
• Clear My Name: Jenny has to find a way to prove her innocence after she's accused of murdering Kevin and potentially her baby son, among various other incidents. Erich and eventually other people suggest that she has been doing these things unknowingly during mental blackouts, and she has to fight to maintain her sanity while uncovering what is actually happening. She's able to prove that Erich has actually been behind it all by locating his cabin and finding his deranged paintings.
• Control Freak: Erich. He's a perfectionist who expects nothing less than complete compliance with his demands and ensures everything in the house is kept exactly as he wants (he even stays up to change everything back the way it was after Jenny moved things around). He's quick to anger if anyone deviates from his expectations or things don't go exactly to plan.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Played for Drama in Jenny's case. She was adopted from a children's home and so never knew her biological family, her adoptive parents died decades ago and her grandmother recently died too. Her only family now are her two young daughters and her loser ex-husband. As a result, she's very susceptible to Erich's charms, especially as he offers her a chance for a loving family again; it also makes it much easier for Erich to isolate her after she marries him.
• Crazy Jealous Guy:
  • Erich. He's extremely possessive of Jenny and jealous of any man who shows her affection, however innocent it is. He wants her to cut her ex-husband out of her life completely despite him being the father of her children and Jenny gets the impression he believes she still has feelings for Kevin despite their marriage having ended years ago. He even makes a point of asking her on their wedding night if there have been any other men she's loved besides Kevin (with the implication he wants to know whether she's had sex with anyone else too).
  • It's implied that John Krueger was similarly possessive of Caroline; he didn't like her hanging out with men besides him or going out by herself at all. Rooney also recalls that when Caroline tried to shift some furniture in the living room to let more light in a window, he made her shift it back, accusing her of wanting to show herself off to the farm workers outside.
• Creepy Crossdresser: Jenny is thoroughly confused as to how people could claim to have seen her getting into Kevin's car, or worse yet, smothering her infant son. It turns out it was ERICH dressed as her in an effort to frame her.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Erich witnessed the death of his mother on his tenth birthday. It's given him major abandonment issues, among various other problems. It turns out his past is even darker still, what with the murders.
• Dead Guy Junior: An extremely creepy example crops up in the second half. While Jenny is recovering from the birth of her son, Erich puts the name Kevin on the birth certificate...as in Kevin, Jenny's recently deceased ex-husband whom Erich despises. Jenny is deeply disturbed when she finds out and insists the name be changed, especially as Erich had previously told Jenny they would follow the Krueger family tradition of naming sons after their fathers. It's strongly implied Erich named the baby after Kevin due to his delusional belief Kevin was the real father.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Erich Krueger. He's not a Card-Carrying Villain or anything like that, but to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of psychology and domestic abuse, early on he's setting off just about every red flag there is (he lovebombs Jenny and her kids to endear her to him, he starts subtly taking control of her life, he's easily angered, he's jealous of her ex-husband to an unreasonable degree, doesn't like her friends/neighbors, is quick to isolate her, and frequently lies). However, in Jenny's defense, she's a young single mother who is struggling financially and grieving the recent loss of her grandmother when Erich swoops in like Prince Charming. It's also a testament to Erich's Manipulative Bastard skills that he's able to fool almost everyone. Not to mention the book was written and set in the early 1980s, at which point non-physical domestic abuse wasn't as well-researched or widely understood (and it's not like Jenny could just Google emotional abuse or gaslighting either). The fact that Erich is clearly bad news to the reader but Jenny is initially unaware helps heighten the tension, as does Jenny struggling to convince others of Erich's sinister nature.
• Domestic Abuse: Erich's behavior towards Jenny after they're married is textbook emotional/psychological abuse. He's not blatantly cruel to her but he's incredibly manipulative and controlling, and uses passive aggressive tactics to undermine her confidence or make her doubt herself. It escalates to physical violence in the climax, with Erich attempting to murder her after his deceptions are unravelled.
• Enfant Terrible: According to Luke, Erich was disturbed even as a child and was overly fixated on his mother, to the point she was almost frightened of him and tried to persuade her husband to get him psychological help. When Erich found out Caroline was planning on leaving, he killed her in a rage.
• Excessive Mourning: While she's initially empathetic, Jenny comes to realize that Erich's grief over his mother's death - which he witnessed - has become this. She's been dead for twenty-five years but he tends to act like it happened recently. He keeps the house exactly the way it was when Caroline was alive, including keeping his boyhood bedroom the same, and blames a lot of his emotional issues and possessiveness over Jenny on his mother's death.
• False Widow: Erich invokes this on Jenny's behalf; when he introduces her to people at his local church, they express their condolences that she was widowed so young and how good it is that she's married Erich. Jenny is actually a divorcee and her ex-husband is very much alive, but she's so shocked and confused she initially doesn't correct anyone. When she questions Erich about it, he says that he did it to protect her reputation as a divorced mother is less palatable in his small country town than in New York City.
• Fatal Attractor: Poor Jenny. Her first husband Kevin has always been hopelessly irresponsible, likely cheated on her, and only takes an interest in her and their kids when Jenny gets remarried and talks about having her new husband adopt them. Of course, her second husband Erich is even worse than Kevin.
• Forceful Kiss: Kevin kisses Jenny against her will when she meets him at a diner to persuade him to leave her alone. It's witnessed by two women from Erich's church, fuelling rumors that Jenny is unfaithful to Erich.
• Foreshadowing:
  • After their son dies, Jenny suggests he be buried with Caroline but Erich says he cannot disturb Caroline's grave. At first this just seems like Erich being obsessive over his dead mother as usual but it's later revealed he has another reason for not wanting the grave opened: it's where Arden's body is also buried.
  • Jenny points out that one of Erich's new paintings of the ranch contains an Anachronism Stew; it depicts a group of trees that were cut down decades ago although the painting was done recently. Erich gets upset and says it's supposed to an intentional symbolic throwback to his childhood, sneering that Jenny should understand that seeing as she has a degree in art herself. At first it just seems to be Erich being a condescending jerk to Jenny and obsessing over the past as per usual but Jenny later realizes it's because the painting was actually completed when the trees were still standing, before Caroline died.
  • It's mentioned that Erich first began publicly displaying and selling his art two years ago, which was around the same time his father John Krueger died; Erich claims that his father likely wouldn't have approved of his son painting as a vocation. Or because John would've been able to tell that the paintings were actually done by his late wife.
  • While exploring the Krueger family cemetery, Jenny sees that one generation of the family lost two daughters young, while the next generation lost a son. She wonders how unbearable it would be to lose a child. As Jenny herself notes, she finds out exactly how it feels when her infant son dies and she comes within inches of losing her daughters.
  • When Jenny first meets Erich, she notes that they're about the same height when she wears three-inch heels. Jenny realizes that if Erich wore her maroon coat and a dark wig the night Kevin disappeared, he could've easily mistaken Erich for Jenny in the darkness until he was in the car: it was Erich dressed like Jenny that people saw getting into the car and on other occasions.
  • Josh Brothers mentions that the day Caroline died, he briefly overheard her trying to tell Erich she was leaving, before he left them in privacy. Erich murdered Caroline because he couldn't stand the thought of her leaving him.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Jenny and Erich have known each other a week when he tells her he wants to marry her. They've only known each other a month by the time they actually tie the knot. A few people express doubts about the marriage because of this, though Jenny insists she knows what she's doing and that she and Erich are only taking things so quickly because they're so sure of their love for each other. It doesn't work out. AT ALL.
• Futureshadowing: In the prologue, which takes place around a year after the story begins proper, Jenny has recently given birth but given the baby's absence and her melancholia, it's clear something has gone horribly wrong. Jenny's baby boy dies when he's eight weeks old under suspicious circumstances.
• Generation Xerox: Jenny's similarties to Caroline go beyond their looks; many people note that Caroline was also an outsider to Granite Place who came to feel trapped and oppressed at the Krueger Farm, with her marriage to a controlling and unempathetic Krueger man becoming increasingly unbearable; she was also the subject of town gossip. Over time, Jenny realizes her own eyes have taken on the same sad, haunted look as Caroline's. Both she and others begin to fear she will meet a similar tragic fate as Caroline did. Luke Garrett was also in love with Caroline and tried to help her leave, while his son Mark falls in love with Jenny and tries to support her. Erich killed Caroline for trying to leave him and he attempts to do the same to Jenny, but luckily this time things work out differently and Jenny survives, with the implication she and Mark will also get to have the relationship Luke missed out on with Caroline.
• Good Parents: Jenny is a loving and devoted mother to her daughters, Beth and Tina, and can't ever imagine leaving them. She falls for Erich so quickly partly because he appears to love her children as much as she does and promises to give them a happy, stable home. Even when everything else in her life starts falling apart, Jenny finds that the one good thing is that her daughters are the happiest she's seen them in a long time. She's also devoted and attentive to her newborn son; she nurses him throughout his illness as best she can and is devastated when he dies.
• Gothic Horror: A Cry in the Night is not exactly a pure example of the genre but obviously draws a lot influence from gothic fiction. A naive young woman marries a sensitive yet tormented man and moves to an old country mansion with a tragic past. She is increasingly isolated from the outside world as terrible things begin to happen, and starts doubting her sanity. People also start to note that they think they've seen her husband's late mother - to whom the heroine bears a remarkable resemblance - wandering the grounds: is it a ghost or is there another explanation?
• Happily Adopted: Jenny. She can't actually remember her adopted parents because they unfortunately died when she was a baby, but she had a happy upbringing with her adoptive grandmother.
• Happy Marriage Charade:
  • Erich invokes this on behalf on his parents, painting a picture of them as a perfect couple who provided him with an idyllic life growing up until his mother's tragic accident. However, he eventually begins letting slip details that his parents' marriage wasn't as good as he claims and Jenny discovers that Caroline was planning on abandoning the family.
  • Jenny herself keeps insisting that things are fine with her marriage to Erich even as it becomes increasingly clear things are not fine at all; she is embarrassed at the thought of having another failed marriage and genuinely believes she can make things work with Erich. When she calls her old neighbor from New York however, who asks her how things are going with her new life, Jenny breaks down and admits how everything has gone wrong.
• Harassing Phone Call: Jenny begins receiving creepy phone calls when she’s home alone, calling her a “whore”, saying she has no right to take Caroline’s place and accusing her of murdering her ex-husband and her baby. The voice is distorted so Jenny is unable to recognize the caller. It’s eventually revealed it’s Erich.
• Has a Type: Jenny, whether consciously or not. Kevin and Erich are both artistic types who can be generous and charming when they want to be, but are also both fundamentally selfish and have a habit of trampling over Jenny's boundaries or making unreasonable demands. Luckily, Jenny seems to have broken the cycle in the end with her possible romance with Mark, a veterinarian who is genuinely kind and responsible.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Jenny is the story's protagonist and is a kind, humble Wide-Eyed Idealist who marries Erich because she believes herself truly in love and appreciates the way he looks after her and her daughters. However, many people in Erich's hometown view her as a gold-digging townie who is taking advantage of Erich's generosity, thinks she's too good to associate with them and possibly deceived Erich about her relationship with her ex-husband being over (some of them are under the impression she's a widow). Things get even worse when Kevin follows her from New York and is later found dead, and Jenny's baby dies in suspicious circumstances a few months later, making her look not just manipulative and greedy but downright unhinged and dangerous. It becomes clear Erich is subtly sabotaging her character in order to further isolate her and leave her dependent on him.
• High-Voltage Death: Caroline suffered this. While feeding animals in the barn, Caroline tripped on the damp floor and fell into a stock tank. She instinctively grabbed at a lamp to stop herself falling (not realizing it was plugged in) inadvertently pulled the wire into tank with her and was fatally electrocuted.
• Hope Spot: When Erich announces they’re travelling to Texas for his latest exhibition, Jenny uses it as an opportunity to plan her escape, selling off her grandmother’s locket to get cash and book plane tickets to New York for herself and her children. But on the day they’re due to leave Erich covertly leaves without Jenny, taking the girls and the luggage containing the emergency money with him. When Jenny calls the hotel in Texas, she learns that Erich cancelled the booking two weeks ago and realizes that not only did Erich figure out her plans long in advance, she has no idea where he’s taken her kids.
• How We Got Here: The prologue features Jenny tracking down the cabin where Erich does his paintings, finding something horrifying amongst his work and racing back through the woods screaming for help. The rest of the book begins just over a year earlier, leading up to these events.
• Identifying the Body: Jenny has to identify her ex-husband Kevin's body once he's found, as she's the only person in Granite Place who really knew him. Jenny is so upset she unthinkingly says "That's my husband", causing her current husband Erich to storm out in a jealous rage.
• I Have Your Wife: Erich absconds with Jenny's daughters and says he'll only bring them back if Jenny 'admits' to doing all kinds of horrible things - supposedly during mental blackouts - because she's a 'danger' to them. Then Jenny discovers Erich's paintings and realizes both what he's capable of and what he plans to do her daughters...and they're alone with him somewhere.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Jenny has always wanted the love and support of a family like everyone else seems to have. She wants it so much it borders on Desperately Craves Affection, as it drives her disastrous decision to rush into marriage with Erich. It's understandable considering her backstory; she never knew her birth family or her adoptive parents either, as the latter died in an accident when she was a year old. Jenny recalls feeling sad at school because all the other kids could celebrate Mother's and Father's Day while she didn't have parents, although her Nana assured her she was still loved. Jenny married her first husband young and didn't mind that they had children so quickly, but he wasn't keen on being a family man and left her. When Jenny meets Erich, she has recently lost Nana and lacks close friends, which Erich fully exploits.
• Incest Subtext: Part of the reason Erich becomes fixated on Jenny is because of her uncanny resemblance to his dead mother. And then on their wedding night he asks her to wear his mother's nightgown. Yeah...In fact, Jenny mentions he only makes love to her when she's wearing the gown.
• Jealous Parent: Erich expresses jealousy over he and Jenny's newborn son, 'jokingly' complaining about how she spends most of her time with him and that he's feeling left out (it’s worth noting that their son was born premature and is quite sickly, so Jenny is trying to keep him healthy). This takes an especially dark turn given the implication Erich murdered their son partly so he could have Jenny all to himself again.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Kevin may be a self-absorbed deadbeat and his motives aren't exactly pure, but he's ultimately right about Erich not being as wonderful as he presents himself. Because of his previous behavior and the fact he is clearly jealous, Jenny dismisses his warnings.
• Just in Time: Beth and Tina are found wandering on a road, having escaped from the cabin where Erich left them (where they would have eventually perished from starvation, since Erich was killed before he could return). The official who found them bluntly states that they wouldn't have lasted more than an hour in the blizzard conditions.
• "Just Joking" Justification: Erich's go-to response if Jenny confronts him about his hurtful comments is that he was only making a joke, accusing her of jumping to the wrong conclusion and being too serious.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: Erich often says that Jenny reminds him of his mother and it's noted by several characters that they also look remarkably alike. Erich intentionally tries to make Jenny more closely resemble Caroline and tends to compare her to Caroline (often unfavorably) and on more than one occasion she has to remind him that she isn't Caroline. Jenny quickly comes to realize she's becoming just as miserable and trapped as Caroline felt.
• The Lost Lenore: It's revealed that Mark Garrett's father, Luke, was in love with Caroline and still is twenty-five years after her death, given how wistfully he looks at the painting of her whenever he visits the Krueger home and his shock upon first meeting Jenny - who bears a noted resemblance to her; he's never had another relationship despite Caroline's death and he being divorced from Mark's mother for decades. He never acted upon his feelings out of respect for Caroline's husband, who was his friend, though he was planning to drive Caroline to the airport when she decided to get a divorce. Luke confides in Jenny that Caroline was "Everything he wanted in a woman" and it clearly pains him that she met such a sad end. It's further indicated Luke always felt there was something off about the way Caroline died, a suspicion that is proved correct.
• Love Cannot Overcome: It's revealed that Elsa and Josh were engaged twenty-five years ago, but after Josh was accused of being responsible for his employer Caroline's tragic accident due to being drunk, Elsa couldn't cope with the town's scrutiny and Josh's drinking, breaking off the engagement. In the present day, they eventually rekindle their relationship. It's also revealed shortly after that Josh wasn't responsible for Caroline's death, nor was it an accident.
• Love Hungry: Erich is so desperate for Jenny to love him (and only him) that he deliberately isolates her from everyone else, tries to mould her into his idea of a perfect wife, constantly makes her promise she'll never leave, tries to curb any of her attempts to be independent or have a life outside of him, and overreacts to any disagreement they have, accusing her of rejecting or disrespecting him. He eventually murders her ex-husband to get him out of their lives permanently and then tries to gaslight Jenny into believing she did it (among other horrible things) while using her children to control her; he promises he'll protect Jenny from the legal repercussions but she also knows he'll never let her leave him if she complies. When she doesn't play ball, he tries to kill her.
• Love Martyr: Jenny initially remains loyal to Erich and complies with even his most ridiculous demands out of love for him and hope their relationship will improve. However, after their newborn son dies and Erich not only shows little empathy but insinuates she had something to do with it, Jenny starts actively plotting to escape him.
• Loving a Shadow:
  • Jenny slowly comes to realize that everything she loves and admires in Erich - who she believes must be a gentle and sensitive man partly based on his paintings - is purely an act and that she doesn't know the real him at all. She later admits that she began to suspect he wasn't what he appeared long before, but was too afraid to look under his mask.
  • Erich likewise mostly loves Jenny because she resembles his late mother, who he also has an overly-idealised and unrealistic view of. He tries to shape Jenny into being more like his mother (or his ideal of her) and doesn't like it if she does anything to assert her independence or reminds him that she isn't his mother but her own person.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Played for Drama. Jenny starts to get the impression that Erich believes her new baby was actually fathered by her ex-husband, especially given that during the birth he expresses dismay over the baby's hair color (it's much darker than his). Even when the baby's hair begins to lighten to his color, he remains emotionally distant and doesn't let the baby be named after him despite it being a family tradition for the Kruegers. It ends up being Played for Horror given it's implied Erich murdered the baby out of deluded belief he wasn't the father.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Subverted, as we do eventually get a definitive answer. Several characters start saying they've seen Caroline walking the grounds. At first it's dismissed as them seeing Jenny instead, only they keep seeing her in places Jenny knows she hasn't been, at least as far as she remembers. And then Jenny herself starts hearing someone walking around the house at night and feels someone leaning over her while she's trying to sleep...only when she turns on the light no one's there. Rooney thinks its Caroline's ghost and Jenny starts to wonder the same thing, or if she's just going crazy. It's actually Erich dressing up like Jenny/Caroline to mess with her.
• Minnesota Nice: Subverted. The novel is primarily set in a small rural town in Minnesota and while most people are polite and friendly enough, they're also a bit close-minded and judgemental, especially when it comes to newcomer Jenny. Erich is one of the most well-known and popular residents of the town, and he's a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. Several townsfolk are kinder and more welcoming towards Jenny after the truth about Erich comes out though, regretting how they misjudged her.
• Missing Mom: Played for Drama in Erich's case. He was very close to his mother Caroline when he was a child and was devastated by her death when he was ten years old. He still mourns for her over twenty years later, to the point it's unhealthy and negatively affects his relationship with his wife.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Many people in Granite Place, including Erich, start to suspect Jenny of cheating on Erich with her ex-husband Kevin, especially because he followed her from New York to Minnesota despite their marriage being over, Jenny has supposedly claimed to be a widow, and Jenny was seen kissing Kevin over dinner at a local restaurant. Jenny honestly insists that she didn't invite Kevin to Granite Place and in fact warned him against coming, that it was Erich who gave the town the impression she was a widow but he knew from the start she was divorced, and that Kevin kissed her against her will in the restaurant, where she'd only agreed to meet him to persuade him to leave her be. Consequently, rumours spread that Jenny's unborn child may be her ex's, not Erich's; when Kevin goes missing and is later found murdered, and some people report seeing a woman matching Jenny's description and wearing her maroon thermal coat getting into his car, it does not look good for Jenny.
• Momma's Boy: Erich was extremely close to his mother, aided by the fact his father was rather aloof and not the affectionate type. One of his best works is "Memory of Caroline", which he painted in her memory and refuses to ever sell. Unfortunately, Erich takes his love for Caroline to the point of obsession; he's still not fully come to terms with her death even though it happened over two decades ago and he keeps everything in the house exactly as it was when Caroline was alive.
• Offing the Offspring: Erich murders his infant son either out of a delusion that the baby isn't his, or worse yet, knowing that he is, but still viewing him as a rival for Jenny's affection.
• Oh, Crap!: Jenny receives a call from her former boss Mr Hartley, who took it upon himself to warn her that the people who bought Erich’s paintings have discovered that he forged his name to them and that they’re going public with the scandal. Jenny, who is desperately trying not to set Erich off because he has her children with him and she now knows he’s a murderer, freaks out and futilely begs Hartley to stop the story going public, but it’s out of his hands.
• Only Known by Their Nickname:
  • Beth and Tina's full names are Elizabeth and Christina, but they're almost exclusively referred to by the shortened versions.
  • Jenny refers to her newborn son either as "the baby" or by his Affectionate Nickname of "Pumpkin", rather than his given name. Initially, she says that calling him Erich seems too formal for a little baby, though when she realises Erich kept the name Kevin on the birth certificate despite her insistence it be changed, she doesn't use that name either because of the highly uncomfortable circumstances.
• Outdoorsy Gal: Rooney says that Arden was passionate about the outdoors; she was an Animal Lover who aspired to become a vet, was president of the F-H club one year and enjoyed hiking, though her parents warned her not to go too far. Arden wandered all the way to Erich's cabin in the woods one day, which sealed her fate.
• Outliving One's Offspring:
  • Jenny's newborn son with Erich dies several weeks after his birth, seemingly of cot death. It later turns out Erich smothered the baby and tried to gaslight Jenny into believing she'd done it.
  • Rooney and Clyde discover their daughter Arden was killed a decade ago; Clyde is deeply shocked while Rooney actually feels some relief to finally know what happened to Arden.
• The Paranoiac: Erich fits a lot of the criteria. He's manipulative with an increasingly noticeable cruel streak, becomes jealous easily, is extremely self-absorbed and controlling, and is convinced Jenny is trying to cheat on him with every man who shows her affection and/or intends to leave him. He tends to read ill intent into everyone's actions (while accusing others of unjustly doing the same to him). Once the truth about him comes out, it's speculated by doctors that he intentionally sabotaged his relationship with Jenny from the start because he was convinced he was unlovable and she would 'abandon' him just like his mother.
• Parent with New Paramour: Type 1. Beth and Tina adore Erich and are quick to call him "Daddy", which is understandable given how absent their biological father is. Unfortunately, Erich really doesn't have their best interests in mind.
• Police Are Useless: Zig-zagged. Sheriff Gunderson intially comes off as unsympathetic and unhelpful, taking an immediate dislike to Jenny and trying to bully her into admitting she allegedly killed her ex-husband, smothered her baby and poisoned her husband's horse to get rid of Joe, all to cover up her supposed affair and/or hide that she lied to Erich about her past. While it's understandable Gunderson would be suspicious of Jenny under the circumstances, he fixates solely on her and never once considers another suspect, with the implication that it's because Jenny is an outsider and no one in town has a high opinion of her. But once Gunderson receives irrefutable proof that Erich has been behind everything and Jenny was telling the truth all along, the sheriff is extremely contrite, doing everything he can to help apprehend Erich and locate Jenny's missing daughters. Like everyone else in town, he's also thoroughly charmed by Erich and his respectable family, and so doesn't want to believe anything bad of him at least until the evidence is right in front of his face.
• Posthumous Character:
  • Jenny's Nana, who died three months prior to the story. Jenny occasionally brings her up, such as wishing she were still here to help her or thinking about advice Nana gave her. It's all but stated that a big reason Jenny falls in love with Erich so quickly is due to her grief over the death of the beloved grandmother who raised her, as well as the loss of the physical and emotional support Nana provided to Jenny and her children.
  • Caroline. Although she's been dead for over twenty years, her presence is strongly felt throughout the novel, particularly due to Erich's obsession with keeping her memory alive. Jenny begins trying to find out more about Caroline, realizing this is the way to get to the heart of the sinister mystery threatening her new life.
• Premature Birth Drama: Jenny goes into labor early and gives birth to a small, sickly baby boy. She devotes herself to caring for him until he can have surgery to help his breathing; consequently, she doesn't spend as much time with her older children or her husband, which makes the latter jealous. The baby dies just eight weeks later, leaving Jenny devastated, though her husband is strangely unemotional, stating that their son is unlikely to have survived anyway. And then people start questioning if it was a natural death...
• Pretty in Mink: Erich buys Jenny a black mink coat as a wedding present. She's touched, as no one has ever bought her anything like this, while Erich insists she should have nothing but the best. Much later in the story, she finds it cut to ribbons inside her closet.
• Questionable Consent: Shortly after the death of their newborn son, Erich tries to initiate sex with Jenny, saying it'll bring them closer again and they can try to conceive another baby. Jenny is still grieving the loss of her son and is just about done with the marriage at this point, so she turns him down, but Erich pressures her until she agrees just to get it over with. She's clearly not enthusiastic about having sex with him at all.
• Raised by Grandparents: Jenny was raised by her grandmother "Nana", due to her parents dying in a car accident when she was fourteen months old.
• Red Herring:
  • Jenny mentions that when she was sixteen, she got into a car accident and received a head injury, though besides a scar on her hairline she fully recovered. Erich begins suggesting she actually suffered brain damage causing memory loss and violent mood swings, and Jenny is almost convinced it's true, only for it to turn out there's nothing wrong with her head save for the fact Erich's messing with it.
  • Rooney has a habit of breaking into the Krueger house, doesn't always remember where she's been or what she's done, and isn't the most mentally stable woman. It's noted that she adored Caroline, possibly to the point of obsession. Jenny also lent her maroon thermal coat to Rooney shortly before a woman wearing the coat was seen getting into Kevin's car; Rooney insists she put the coat back but her memory isn't always reliable. Rooney is completely innocent of any wrongdoing.
  • Jenny discovers that Elsa the housekeeper was once engaged to Josh Brothers, but couldn't handle the shame when he was accused of being responsible for Caroline's fatal accident and broke things off. Erich also frequently belittles and patronizes her. She has her own set of keys and knows the property well, so she can theoretically come and go as she pleases without anyone noticing. She's also quite cold to Jenny and rebuffs her attempts to befriend her. Jenny wonders if she could possibly resent the Kruegers enough to try and sabotage Jenny's marriage to Erich, or worse. Like Rooney, Elsa has nothing to do with anything that's been going on; she doesn't much care for Erich because of the way he's treated her and Josh, but it turns out she actually likes Jenny and only kept her distance because of Erich's orders.
• Replacement Goldfish: It becomes evident that Erich is treating Jenny as a replacement for Caroline, even trying to mould her into becoming more like her such as insisting she wear her clothes, use the same scents, take up her hobby of knitting and so on.
• The Reveal:
  • Erich Krueger isn't actually a talented artist. His mother Caroline was the one with talent and he's passing off her paintings as his own work. Erich has done paintings of his own but they're not the kind you'd put on public display.
  • Caroline's death wasn't a tragic accident. Her own son killed her after he learned she intended to leave him and his father.
• Room Full of Crazy: The attic of Erich's cabin, which is full of deranged paintings depicting all his most evil acts.
• The Runaway: Rooney and Clyde's teenage daughter Arden ran away a decade ago and hasn't been heard from since. Rooney sometimes wanders around the neighbourhood just hoping she'll get a glimpse of her, while Clyde assumes she's living a new life in a city somewhere. It turns out she was actually murdered and her body has buried in Caroline's grave - in sight of her house - all this time.
• Sanity Slippage:
  • Ever since her daughter Arden disappeared, Rooney has been slowly loosing her grip on reality; she often says strange things, wanders around in a stupor, sometimes doesn't remember the things she's said or done, mistakes Jenny for Caroline (whom she was friends with) and breaks into Jenny's home a few times. Erich insists that Rooney is deeply unstable and warns Jenny to stay away from her; Jenny isn't so certain but does start to wonder if Rooney is the one behind the strange goings-on, perhaps without realizing it. After finding out what really happened to Arden, Rooney becomes far more stable and rational; after she kills Erich it's suggested she be put into a mental institute but Jenny and Clyde both speak up for her, insisting she's not dangerous and only killed Erich to protect Jenny.
  • As time passes, Jenny begins to spiral towards a mental breakdown due to her isolation and the stress of her marriage, among other issues. She becomes highly anxious and paranoid, frequently second-guessing herself, forgetting things and questioning whether everything that she sees or hears is real. It's suggested that her mental problems may be exacerbated by a head injury she received when she was sixteen. Jenny eventually realizes Erich is deliberately trying to drive her to insanity and is well on her way to recovering by the end.
• Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Kevin goes missing under suspicious circumstances. Eventually, his car is found in the river with his corpse inside. The police immediately treat it as foul play.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: When Erich learns Jenny is planning on leaving him, he's convinced that his paranoia that she would break her promise and abandon him was justified. However, Jenny was only driven away because of Erich's own jealous and controlling behavior.
• Shout-Out: Erich's obsession with his mother and his insistence on keeping everything in the house as it was when she was alive, including his childhood bedroom, is very reminiscent of Psycho as is his habit of dressing in his mother's clothes, assuming her identity, and the fact that he KILLED HER.
• Shown Their Work: In the foreword, Mary Higgins Clark thanks a Dr John T Kelly for helping her with research into psychopathic traits and personality disorders. Given how scarily accurate Erich Krueger is to a real person with psychopathic/narcissistic traits, it paid off.
• The Sociopath: Erich has signs of being a sociopath (Mary Higgins Clark stated she intentionally researched and incorporated psychopathic traits when creating the character); he's a master manipulator who expresses little remorse for harming others including committing extremely violent acts, is excessively self-important, demonstrates increasingly poor impulse control, lies constantly, acts altruistic mostly to get positive attention for himself, and has shallow and one-sided relationships where his needs always come first. He's not formally diagnosed with a personality disorder as he never got psychological treatment (his father refused to get him treated as a child and as an adult Erich doesn't think there's anything wrong with him), but there's clearly something not right with him. It's implied his father had some sociopathic traits too that he passed on to Erich (both genetically and through his behaviour).
• Stalker with a Crush: When Kevin realizes Jenny is serious about moving to Minnesota with their daughters and having her new husband adopt the girls, he tells her he always thought they'd get back together someday and ends up following Jenny to Minnesota, where he repeatedly calls her and asks her to meet him. His main motivation is that he doesn't want to give up custody of his daughters, though it's implied he's trying to win Jenny back too; he doesn't care if his interference causes problems with Jenny' new marriage and plants an unwanted kiss on her.
• Starter Marriage: Jenny and Kevin's marriage was shortlived. He was Jenny's first serious boyfriend and they married shortly after she finished college when she was about 22 years old; Kevin was around the same age. Jenny unexpectedly fell pregnant with Beth shortly afterward, then had Tina a year later. Kevin wasn't remotely ready to be a father and committed husband, especially as he wanted to focus on his acting career (he even tried to talk Jenny into a termination). He moved out shortly after Tina was born and the divorce was finalized not long after that, they having only been married for less than three years. Although hurt, Jenny found that she wasn't as devastated by the divorce as she would've expected. It's implied Jenny rushed into the marriage - despite her grandmother's disapproval of Kevin - because she desperately wanted the large, supportive family she always dreamed of (while she adored her grandmother, it was just the two of them for years and Nana's death proved how fragile such a family unit can be).
• Starving Artist:
  • Played straight with aspiring actor Kevin MacPartland, who is so poor he resorts to mooching off the ex-wife he owes child support to. It's implied he's mostly poor because of his lack of responsibility and bad financial decisions more than anything. After he dies, Jenny laments that he was a genuinely talented actor and could've really made something of himself one day.
  • Inverted with Erich Krueger; he's already wealthy because of the farm he inherited and his paintings sell for thousands of dollars.
• Struggling Single Mother: Jenny. Her daughters' father is around, but he's seriously behind on child support, rarely comes to see the kids, and sometimes asks Jenny to lend him money. As a result Jenny is the one raising the girls, working long hours for measly pay at an art gallery. She had her grandmother to help care for Beth and Tina while she's working but Nana died three months ago, leaving her with no one to help her.
• Taking the Kids:
  • A notable aversion is provided in the backstory; Jenny discovers letters between Caroline and her parents revealing she had decided to leave her husband, but she only had one ticket, implying she intended to leave her son behind with his father. Jenny - who can't imagine ever going away and leaving behind her daughters - wonders why Caroline would do this. It turns out that Erich's disturbing behavior was a big reason why Caroline wanted to leave, as she needed time away from her husband and son to safely come up with a way to help Erich.
  • Jenny plots to leave Erich with her children and return to New York but Erich figures out what she's up to and leaves with the children first. When Jenny manages to get in contact with him and demands he return her daughters, Erich points out they're his daughters as well, as he legally adopted them, and he has the right to take them wherever he wants.
• They Know Too Much: It's revealed that Erich strangled Arden to death after he caught her snooping around his cabin, where she would doubtless have seen the paintings Caroline did and Erich's own painting depicting his murder of his mother.
• Villain Has a Point: Erich is consumed by paranoia, especially when it comes to other men supposedly trying to steal his wife, but Jenny later thinks he might be right for once when he claims that his friend Mark has romantic feelings for her. Although Mark isn't obvious about his feelings and would never betray Erich (despite what Erich thinks), she begins to notice Mark's affection for her seems to go beyond just friendship. The ending implies they'll become a couple eventually.
• Villainous Breakdown: Erich has never been a picture of sound mental health, but for most of the novel he’s pretty good at keeping up a façade of normalcy. Near the ending though, he becomes increasingly unhinged culminating in him chasing Jenny around the ranch with a gun, screaming that she’s the devil, all the while dressed up like his mother.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Erich Krueger is a highly respected and influential member of the Granite Place community, especially with his family have lived there and helped the town prosper for generations. Erich is seen as a generous and sensitive man who suffered a terrible tragedy, and people are quick to feel sorry for him when they think he's been duped into marrying a pretentious gold-digger who lied about being widowed, nor do they believe Jenny's claims about Erich's darker side. Jenny herself wonders if she's misjudging Erich at times, because everyone seems convinced he's wonderful. Erich is good at charming and manipulating people, while hiding his more twisted side or making people feel guilty for 'misinterpreting' him. A lot of the residents feel pretty sheepish when they learn Erich is actually a murderous psychopath and try to make amends to Jenny, who saw what Erich truly was.
• We Used to Be Friends: When Mark's father offers to let Jenny and her children visit him in Florida and Mark stops dating his on-off girlfriend Emily, Erich immediately severs his friendship with Mark despite them having been almost like brothers for years and fires him as his vet, too. He tells Jenny that he believes Mark and his father are trying to take her away from him, also insisting she led Mark on and that's why he stopped seeing Emily. After Jenny confides in Mark about Erich's paranoia and possessiveness, and Mark learns from his father just how disturbed Erich is, Mark starts to distance himself from Erich as well, realising he may not really know his oldest friend at all. Mark is firmly on Jenny's side after she tells him Erich has taken off with her daughters when she attempted to leave, realising just how twisted and dangerous Erich is.
• What You Are in the Dark: A pretty dark variation occurs when Erich - not realizing Jenny is watching - coldly shoots Joe's puppy after he gets loose. When Jenny starts screaming for him to stop, thus alerting him to her presence, he claims that he only shot the dog because he believed it was a potentially dangerous stray and he didn't know it was Joe's pet. He makes a big show of apologizing to Joe and buys him a new puppy, but Jenny gets the feeling he only did this because she witnessed him shooting the dog and that he otherwise might've let Joe believe his dog went 'missing', which is indicated to be what happened to another of Joe's dogs. This incident is one of several that causes Jenny to realize Erich is not as benevolent as he presents himself.
• Would Hurt a Child: Erich. He smothers his own infant son and intended to kill his young stepdaughters, though fortunately in the latter case he's killed and the girls are rescued before they're seriously harmed.
• You Killed My Father: After fatally shooting Erich in the novel's climax, Rooney states that was "for Arden", her daughter whom she recently learned Erich murdered.

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