Mary Higgins Clark, the tireless and long-reigning "Queen of Suspense" whose tales of women beating the odds made her one of the world's most popular writers, died Friday at age 92.
Her publisher, Simon & Schuster, announced that she died in Naples, Florida, of natural causes.
"Nobody ever bonded more completely with her readers than Mary did," her longtime editor Michael Korda said in statement.
"She understood them as if they were members of her own family. She was always absolutely sure of what they wanted to read and, perhaps more important, what they didn't want to read and yet she managed to surprise them with every book."
Mary Higgins Clark specialized in women triumphing over danger, such as the besieged young prosecutor in "Just Take My Heart" or the mother of two and art gallery worker whose second husband is a madman in "A Cry in the Night."
"There are wonderful sagas you can thoroughly enjoy a section and put it down. But if you're reading my book, I want you stuck with reading the next paragraph. The greatest compliment I can receive is, 'I read your darned book 'til 4 in the morning, and now I'm tired.' I say, 'Then you get your money's worth.'"
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