Wrecked

Written by Carol Higgins Clark

Narrated by Michele Pawk

New York Times bestselling author Carol Higgins Clark delivers the thirteenth installment in her crowd pleasing Regan Reilly mystery series, this time with Regan trying to find a mysterious woman’s identity while on vacation in Cape Cod, in a story The Daily Beast calls “thrilling.”

Private Investigator Regan Reilly and her husband, Jack “no relation” Reilly, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, are about to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. They are looking forward to a quiet romantic weekend out of town. Wouldn’t you know their choice of destination provides them with anything but!

Regan and Jack had considered going to Bermuda, but instead they decide to spend four days at his parents’ beautiful beachfront home on Cape Cod, a wonderful spot where they’d never been alone. During the summer the house overflowed with Jack’s family, bubbling with activity from morning until night. But to be up there for a weekend in April, just the two of them, sounded like a perfect escape.

However, the best laid plans...

In the bedroom, Regan opens the curtains to find Skip, the Reillys’ young caretaker, pressing his nose against the glass, supposedly checking for leaks. A moment later, Jack arrives home from the market, two gossipy older women who live up the street in tow. A branch crashed through their living room window, and they need a place to stay. When Regan thought things couldn’t get any worse, Skip comes running into the house, distraught that he’d just discovered Adele Hopkins, the woman renting the house next door, in a heap at the bottom of her staircase to the beach. Regan and Jack run back down with him, but huge waves are crashing on the shore. Hopkins is gone, presumably swept out to sea.

Regan and Jack begin an investigation to help their friends track down Hopkins’s family. They start by interviewing two young women who own the shop where Adele had bought the pillows. Pippy and Ellen opened Pillow Talk after they both lost their jobs. When a newspaper article revealing the terrible way the women had been treated by their former employers was posted on the Internet, business took off, they started to become well-known, and the Pillow Talk website became a place for people who had had similar experiences to vent their feelings.

Pippy and Ellen just received an anonymous e-mail from someone who spews venom about her former rowing coach—Adele Hopkins. Could she be the same Adele Hopkins?

Regan and Jack’s search for clues to this mysterious woman’s identity makes for an anniversary weekend they’ll never forget!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Apr 13, 2010
• ISBN: 9780743599962

Carol Higgins Clark

Carol Higgins Clark (1956–2023) was the bestselling author of the Regan Reilly mysteries. She was the daughter of suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark, with whom she coauthored a bestselling holiday suspense series. Also an actress, Carol Higgins Clark studied at the Beverly Hills Playhouse and recorded several novels. She received AudioFile’s Earphones Award of Excellence for her reading of Jinxed.   

Reviews for Wrecked

[pmlyayakkers · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Anna wasn't drunk at the time of the accident, even though she was on her way home from a party. And the accident wasn't even really her fault - the other car swerved into her. But she killed her brother's girlfriend and she can't get it out of her head.

[edspicer_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The police, her parents, and others try to convince Anna that it is not her fault. Just because she was driving, just because her best friend Ellen has a punctured lung, just because the other driver is dead, just because that dead person happens to be her brother's girlfriend, this accident is not her fault. But there are details the police do not know—there are details that no one knows but Anna. Anna knows the truth and she has to find a way to live with herself. With the help of a therapist, Anna begins slowly revealing the truth—only to discover much deeper truths. Wrecked deals with the trauma of post-traumatic stress, teen drinking, and family dysfunction without being didactic. Teens who like gritty psychological drama will love Frank’s graceful, engaging writing.

[lilibrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Anna wasn't drunk at the time of the accident, even though she was on her way home from a party. And the accident wasn't even really her fault - the other car swerved into her. But she killed her brother's girlfriend and she can't get it out of her head.

[barbaralois-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Good story!!

[delightedlibrarian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A fun easy read.

[gma2lana · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was ok...nothing special...in fact, at the end, everything seemed to rush together.

[pegswaney · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

regan & Jack go to Cape cod for 1st anniversary- lady washed to sea. lots of characters intrude on their weekend.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Regan & Jack Reilly are spending their first anniversary on Cape Cod. A storm is brewing. The handyman Skip discovers that Adele Hopkins, the reclusive occupant of the home next door, has fallen on the steps leading to the beach while apparently trying to reach her boat and has facial bleeding. He thinks she could be dead, but by the time he gets Jack and Reilly to help, her body is gone, apparently washed out to sea by the rapidly rising waters. Jack & Regan attempt to learn more about the woman in an effort to reach her next of kin. Most of the action takes place on a single day with only a few chapters for the following two days. This was a light and enjoyable read. When I first began reading it, I felt that I'd read that particular scenario in a mystery in the past, but I never could quite place the author or story from which I felt it had been derived. I do believe that the final story ended up taking a different turn than the one I felt it had read in the past. The story line just seemed so familiar for it to be a book that had just been published for the first time.