The Christmas Thief: A Novel - Softcover

Clark, Mary Higgins; Clark, Carol Higgins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743272250 ISBN 13: 9780743272254

Publisher: Pocket Books, 2006

Synopsis

Lottery winner-turned-amateur sleuth Alvirah Meehan joins forces with private detective Regan Reilly to track down the ninety-foot tree, destined for display in Rockefeller Center, that vanished en route to the city, unaware that the tree contains a secret cache of priceless gems, hidden by scam artist Packey Noonan before being sent to prison. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

Mary Higgins Clark’s books are worldwide bestsellers, with more than 100 million copies sold in the U.S. alone. Visit her on the web at MaryHigginsClark.com.

Carol Higgins Clark is the author of fourteen previous bestselling Regan Reilly mysteries. She is coauthor, along with her mother, Mary Higgins Clark, of a bestselling holiday mystery series. Also an actress, Carol Higgins Clark studied at the Beverly Hills Playhouse and has recorded several of her mother's works as well as her own novels. She received AudioFile's Earphones Award of Excellence for her reading of Jinxed. She lives in New York City.

Her website is www.carolhigginsclark.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

The Christmas Thief

1

Packy Noonan carefully placed an x on the calendar he had pinned to the wall of his cell in the federal prison located near Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. Packy was overflowing with love for his fellow man. He had been a guest of the United States Government for twelve years, four months, and two days. But because he had served over 85 percent of his sentence and been a model prisoner, the parole board had reluctantly granted Packy his freedom as of November 12, which was only two weeks away.

Packy, whose full name was Patrick Coogan Noonan, was a world-class scam artist whose offense had been to cheat trusting investors out of nearly $100 million in the seemingly legitimate company he had founded. When the house of cards collapsed, after deducting the money he had spent on homes, cars, jewelry, bribes, and shady ladies, most of the rest, nearly $80 million, could not be accounted for.

In the years of his incarceration, Packy’s story never changed. He insisted that his two missing associates had run off with the rest of the money and that, like his victims, he, too, had been the victim of his own trusting nature.

Fifty years old, narrow-faced, with a hawklike nose, close-set eyes, thinning brown hair, and a smile that inspired trust, Packy had stoically endured his years of confinement. He knew that when the day of deliverance came, his nest egg of $80 million would sufficiently compensate him for his discomfort.

He was ready to assume a new identity once he picked up his loot; a private plane would whisk him to Brazil, and a skillful plastic surgeon there had already been engaged to rearrange the sharp features that might have served as the blueprint for the working of his brain.

All the arrangements had been made by his missing associates, who were now residing in Brazil and had been living on $10 million of the missing funds. The remaining fortune Packy had managed to hide before he was arrested, which was why he knew he could count on the continued cooperation of his cronies.

The long-standing plan was that upon his release Packy would go to the halfway house in New York, as required by the terms of his parole, dutifully follow regulations for about a day, then shake off anyone following him, meet his partners in crime, and drive to Stowe, Vermont. There they were to have rented a farmhouse, a flatbed trailer, a barn to hide it in, and whatever equipment it took to cut down a very large tree.

“Why Vermont?” Giuseppe Como, better known as Jo-Jo, wanted to know. “You told us you hid the loot in New Jersey. Were you lying to us, Packy?”

“Would I lie to you?” Packy had asked, wounded. “Maybe I don’t want you talking in your sleep.”

Jo-Jo and Benny, forty-two-year-old fraternal twins, had been in on the scam from the beginning, but both humbly acknowledged that neither one of them had the fertile mind needed to concoct grandiose schemes. They recognized their roles as foot soldiers of Packy and willingly accepted the droppings from his table since, after all, they were lucrative droppings.

“O Christmas tree, my Christmas tree,” Packy whispered to himself as he contemplated finding the special branch of one particular tree in Vermont and retrieving the flask of priceless diamonds that had been nestling there for over thirteen years.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0743272250
• ISBN 13: 9780743272254
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 336