It was a windswept, raw March morning and the city looked bleak and dreary as it shivered under the overcast sky. But the man who stood at the window of his study in the large house on Market Street didn’t hear the rattling of the wind against the panes or even feel the persistent draft that penetrated between the window frame and sill. He was staring unseeingly into the street.
Sounds like the beginnings of a suspense novel, and being these are the first lines of a Mary Higgins Clark book, you’d think that’s right, but it’s not.
These are the first lines of her first book, Aspire to the Heavens, about George Washington. I’ve never read a Higgins Clark book, yet for some reason I had to have this one, her first, simply because the topic surprised me.
Aspire to the Heavens was published in 1968 by Meredith Press/New York, and I love the part in her bio, printed on the back of the dust jacket, where its says, “Currently she is the writer of daily radio programs for Bess Myerson and Peggy Cass.” Weren’t those two on the TV show “What’s My Line?”
According to Higgins Clark’s website, Aspire to the Heavens was re-issued in 2002 with the title Mount Vernon Love Story.
The Longest Chapter 