At almost ninety-two, the thriller queen has not lost her hand. Anchored in her time, Mary Higgins Clark seizes the #Metoo movement and scrambles the tracks in In Secret, her latest novel with formidable suspense. Against a backdrop of sexual harassment and humiliation in a major New York news channel, the story unfolds the worst-case scenario that results from the denigration of women. Why this book should be put in everyone's hands:
A hyper realistic plot
Investigative journalist in New York, Gina Kane receives a disturbing email from a certain C. Ryan who claims to have had a “terrible experience” within her famous REL news channel . A few days of investigation later, while Gina understands that the anonymous seeks to denounce the sexual harassment of Brad Matthews, a famous presenter, the journalist learns that this young woman died in a strange jet ski accident… Coincidence or protection limitless from an all-powerful sexual predator?
Let someone who has never received a remark or an inappropriate gesture in her life from a superior raise her hand. Nobody ? Mary Higgins Clark got it right. Because it is by anchoring us in a sadly banal reality that the American writer manages to capture our attention.
A diabolical suspense
How far can a business go to protect its sexual predators? When the hunter is a prominent and famous member throughout America , ethical limits no longer exist.
In this famous news channel, women who have dared to denounce their attacker to their hierarchy experience a (still banal) double penalty: denigrated, treated as liars, seductive, they are pressured into omerta .
After C. Ryan's strange death , journalist Gina Kane discovers the suicide of another woman from the same company. The opportunity for her to commit to lifting the veil on a dangerous and infernal gear. Difficult to say more without spoiler this thriller with the airs of documentary ...
Verdict
At a time when the Polanski affair continues to rage, at a time when the declarations of Adèle Haenel break new taboos, at a time when Karine Tuil's novel on the relentless mechanics of modern rape wins the prize Interallied and the Goncourt of high school students, Mary Higgins Clark's new thriller is just right.
Simple, efficient and unpretentious, En secret seizes on a social phenomenon to create an electroshock (since more is needed). What if popular literature played a role in ending the oppression of women?
In secret , Albin Michel, 512 pages, € 22.90
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