Literature / While My Pretty One Sleeps

While My Pretty One Sleeps is a 1989 crime suspense novel by Mary Higgins Clark.

Just over seventeen years ago, Renata Rossetti Kearny, wife of New York Police Commissioner Myles Kearny, was brutally murdered in Central Park. Myles has always believed that Nicky Sepetti, a mob boss he put away for nearly two decades, was responsible but was never able to prove it, while others believe it was a random mugging gone wrong. Now, the Kearnys find themselves entwined with another sinister mystery when scandal-loving freelance writer Ethel Lambston goes missing. Ethel was a regular customer at a high-end fashion boutique owned by Neeve Kearny, Myles and Renata's daughter. While some people assume Ethel has just changed her plans and gone away last minute, as she is wont to do, Neeve cannot shake the feeling something is wrong.

Ethel had recently been working on a tell-all article and book about New York's fashion industry. Knowing some of the city's top designers are less than scrupulous in their dealings, Neeve wonders if one of them would've gone to any lengths to silence Ethel. Then there's Ethel's cash-strapped ex-husband, desperate for money and deeply resentful over still having to pay Ethel alimony. Ethel's equally down-on-his-luck nephew has moved into her apartment and stands to inherit her fortune, although there are rumours she may have changed her will after accusing him of stealing from her. Nicky Sepetti has also finished his prison sentence and Myles is convinced he isn't done with the criminal underworld, nor with his revenge against him. As Neeve tries to piece together what has happened to Ethel, she is unaware a ruthless killer has set her in their sights, and is prepared to ensure she meets the same grisly end as her mother to keep his secrets. 

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Tropes found in this novel include:

• The '80s: The book was published and set in 1989, and it shows in many instances. Besides the detailed descriptions of late '80s fashion, a character mentions having seen a film called No Way Out "a few years ago" (it came out in 1987), Neeve and Myles watch Pavarotti perform at the Met, cellphones are non-existent though one character owns a car phone, very few characters own computers although some of them have Xerox machines, a character thinks the unusual weather is because of "all that hairspray in the ozone" and so on. Myles also served in World War Two, enlisting the day after Pearl Harbour at the age of 21 and taking part in the Italian Campaign under Mark Clark (1943 - 1945); he met his future wife when he was around 24 and she was 10 in the 1940s, with them marrying about fourteen years later. Given the timeline and ages of the characters (Myles is now 68, Renata died a little over seventeen years ago in her thirties), this firmly places the story in the 1980s.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Ethel Lambston took great interest in Myles Kearny after learning he was "an unattached widower", constantly hanging around him at the Kearnys' Christmas party and trying to find more opportunities to see him. She also made a point to scribble down in her diary that Myles was "single and very interesting". For his part, Myles cannot stand Ethel and makes it clear to Neeve he doesn't want her anywhere near their apartment again; Ethel wasn't an unattractive woman, but she could come off as a bit obnoxious with her lack of self-awareness and tendency to never let anyone else get a word in edgeways, and wasn't at all Myles' type. When Neeve finds Ethel's diary entry on Myles, she jokes her father would probably have a stroke if he read it.
• Absurdly Youthful Mother: When Neeve talks to a woman who was recently fired from one of Gordon Steuber's sweatshops, she's shocked when the woman mentions her daughter also worked for Steuber, as Neeve thinks the woman looks no older than her late twenties. The woman says her daughter is only fourteen, implying she wasn't very old herself when she got pregnant. Neeve is particularly disgusted that Gordon would exploit such vulnerable people.
• Abusive Parents: Sal says that his father would beat him as a child and Myles recalls that Sal was so scared of his father, Devin took the blame when Sal accidentally broke Myles' arm to avoid getting him in trouble.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Myles called his wife "my pretty one". Once, Sal overheard the nickname and began jokingly referring to Renata as "my pretty one" too... until he used it at Renata's funeral. Myles promptly told Sal to never use that nickname again, because it was his name for her.
  • Neeve has a tendency to call Myles "Commish", short for Commissioner, especially when he's trying to be authoritative; Myles was Police Commissioner of New York for sixteen years.
  • Almost everyone close to Anthony della Salva (real name Salvatore Esposito) calls him "Sal", with the text also tending to refer to him by this name.
• Age-Gap Romance:
  • Myles Kearny was around fourteen years older than his wife, Renata Rossetti; they first met during World War Two when he was a 24-year-old soldier fighting in Italy and she was a 10-year-old local girl who led him to shelter. Fourteen years later, when Myles was 37 and Renata was 23, they were reunited, quickly fell in love and got married. Although their daughter Neeve and eventually Myles himself note that Myles coming from an older generation made him a bit old-fashioned and chauvinistic at times, he and Renata were happy together until she was murdered.
  • 68-year-old Myles later develops a mutual attraction to Kitty Conway, a 58-year-old widow. He at one point grumbles to himself that he doesn't know why a pretty woman like her would be interested in a retiree ten years her senior with a busted heart, but Kitty herself never brings up the age-gap as an issue and thinks Myles is very attractive. The ending strongly implies they will start a relationship.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Nicky Sepetti is a mobster, but in his final moments he's treated as a tragic and pitiable figure. Upon realising he's having a heart attack, all he can think about is what a mess his life turned out to be, how much he wishes he could see his children again and meet his grandchildren, and regrets telling Joey that Carmen Machado was a cop, as then he wouldn't have been shot and thus could've warned the police about the contract on Neeve (he doesn't know that Machado, or rather Tony Vitale, survived the shooting). He dies in a great deal of pain, insisting to the end he never had Renata Kearny killed and trying to warn the cops about Neeve, to no avail.
• Ambiguous Syntax: A big clue to the mystery is hidden in plain sight in Ethel's fashion article thanks to this trope, though it's not until the climax that a character (and likely the reader) picks up on it. In the section of Ethel's fashion article covering Anthony della Salva, she finishes it with the line "The creator of the Pacific Reef look deserves all the honours the fashion industry can bestow." Jack later discovers from Ethel's early draft that she intentionally rewrote this sentence to remove mention of della Salva and leave it ambiguous. This is because she'd already started to figure out that Sal didn't create the Pacific Reef look, but still needed more evidence, so she simply reworded the sentence so it could be interpreted as either 'Sal created it' or 'someone else did'.
• Assassin Outclassin': Due to how events unfold in the climax, Denny ends up being killed by the same man who hired him to assassinate Neeve Kearny, with the killer intending to kill Neeve himself and pin it on Denny.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Downplayed and ultimately subverted with Ethel Lambston. Neeve acknowledges that Ethel wasn't the easiest person to get along with: she was a nosy chatterbox who could be insensitive to others, had a vengeful streak, and enjoyed stirring up trouble and provoking people. Her treatment of her ex-husband and his family in particular stands out as one of her most unpleasant actions. However, Neeve adds that Ethel was an honest and hardworking woman who called it as she saw it and wasn't afraid to expose corruption and lies. It's also made evident Ethel was a very lonely person who had been let down by the people she loved, giving her a degree of sympathy. Neeve is genuinely upset about Ethel's murder and even though Ethel wasn't well-liked, most people are still shocked by her brutal death; Ruth despised Ethel but even she is disturbed by the thought her husband could've potentially killed her. Ethel's murderer also killed her for purely selfish reasons: she was going to expose him as having stolen his career-making fashion designs from Neeve's mother (and she may have been close to figuring out he also killed Neeve's mother to cover it up).
  • Denny Adler likely isn't going to be missed by anyone, given he was a murderer and all-round scumbag, including killing homeless people to rob them of what little they had because he thinks no one will miss them, and trying to kill Neeve Kearny for money, especially as she's only ever been kind to him. That being said, Neeve is still horrified that Sal killed Denny without giving him a chance to surrender, even knowing he intended to kill her.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: In Myles' recollection of Renata's body, he states that "even in death, she looked like a fashion photograph", with the exception of her slashed throat.
• Belated Love Epiphany: After he finally gets out of prison, Nicky senses that his wife Marie resents his presence and is much happier living her life without him; she even tells other people she's a widow and he thinks she only took him back from a sense of obligation rather than lingering affection. When Nicky has his fatal heart attack, Marie is genuinely distraught and at his televised funeral she makes an impassioned defence of him, insisting that for all his flaws her late husband still didn't order the death of the ex-Commissoner's wife.
• Beneath Suspicion: The jovial, affectionate Uncle Sal is barely even considered as a suspect in Ethel's murder, much less Renata's; although Ethel had intended to expose him as having lied about his upbringing to make himself seem more glamorous, no one considers that worth killing for and it's even pointed out it will probably make people view Sal more favorably, as rags-to-riches stories are popular now. What no one considers is that Sal may have a much darker secret Ethel uncovered, one he would definitely do anything to keep hidden.
• Better Manhandle the Murder Weapon: An inversion. Ethel used an antique Indian dagger as a letter opener. When Seamus punched her, she grabbed it to defend herself and Seamus snatched it out of her hand, nicking her cheek. Thus, the dagger has both Ethel's blood on the blade and Seamus' fingerprints on the hilt, and Ethel's body is eventually found with a slashed throat. Seamus insists he didn't murder Ethel, but because of the dagger situation it really doesn't look good for him. Ruth later tries to help Seamus by stealing the dagger and hiding it in an antique shop. She later realises that while Seamus probably isn't the killer, the dagger likely was the murder weapon and her touching it likely contaminated any evidence left behind by the killer, not to mention she's gone and gotten rid of it.
• Big Apple Sauce: The novel is predominantly set in New York City. We get to see it partly as a glamorous, fast-paced, multicultural fashion capital with no end of things to do and sights to see, though we're also exposed to its darker and less sparkling side too...
• Big Rotten Apple: While New York isn't portrayed as all doom and gloom, we do see a grimmer side of it in the novel: the mob have been operating in the city for decades, there are issues with homeless people and drug addicts, an innocent woman walking through the park to pick up her child had her throat cut, the man who serves Neeve coffee and sandwiches has accepted money to kill her, and the fashion industry is far from clean, including sweatshops, child exploitation, drug trafficking, tax evasion and maybe even murder.
• Birds of a Feather: Part of the reason Neeve Kearny and Jack Campbell are drawn to each other is their similar personalities; they both tend to be bluntly honest and open with their opinions, both enjoy their independence, both tend to be perfectionists when it comes to their work and both love living in New York. It's mentioned that some of their past relationships ended for similar reasons: Neeve was seriously involved with someone but broke things off after he became possessive over her (namely, he got extremely angry with her for not trying harder to find him when they got separated at a gala), making her see a side of him she knew she didn't want in a husband, while Jack broke off his engagement because his ex-fiancee became overly-clingy and controlling after she got the ring on her finger. They're both believers in the marriage advice "The pillars of the temple stand apart".
• Boom, Headshot!: When Denny enters Sal's showroom looking for Neeve, Sal calls out his name to get his attention and promptly shoots him in the forehead. He dies instantly and Neeve is left horrified, both because Sal shot Denny in cold blood without even giving him a chance to surrender and because she realises the implications of Sal knowing her would-be assassin's name.
• Boy Meets Girl: Neeve realises she first met Jack Campbell, a publisher Ethel had approached about her new book, six years earlier; they got into a conversation at an airport while Neeve was waiting for her connecting flight. Jack was quite taken with Neeve, but she dashed off to catch her plane before he had the chance to ask her for her contact details and he unsuccessfully tried looking her up afterwards. They meet again when Neeve approaches Jack to ask if he knows what Ethel was writing about, hoping to find out more about Ethel's disappearance, and they quickly form a romantic connection.
• Can Always Spot a Cop: Nicky Sepetti bragged that could always "smell a cop". His claim may be accurate given that he almost instantly pegs Carmen Machado, a new member of the gang who joined while he was in prison, as an undercover cop. Machado, whose real name is Tony Vitale, is indeed a cop. Sepetti scathingly tells Joey - who accepted Machado into the gang - that he's a moron who failed to do a thorough background check on Machado. After Tony is shot by the gang, the cops correctly guess that Sepetti was the one who blew his cover.
• Career-Ending Injury: Myles was forced to retire from his job as Police Commissioner a year ago, after having a major heart attack. He's taking it hard, especially as his job gave him something to focus on besides his grief for his murdered wife, and he hasn't got much of a life outside of hanging out with - and worrying about - his adult daughter. Things start to improve for him when he looks into taking a job with the Drug Enforcement Agency in Washington and becomes acquainted with an attractive widow named Kitty.
• Chekhov's Gun: Renata's cookbook. If Myles or Neeve had paid more attention to the sketches in the book, they may have realised much earlier that some of them look awfully similar to Sal's career-making Pacific Reef designs, something that Ethel Lambston did pick up on when she visited the Kearnys' home. It's also why Sal tries to destroy the book using spilt coffee when he has dinner at the Kearnys' and sees the drawings himself.
• Chekhov's Party: A few months back, Neeve invited Ethel to her annual Christmas party at her and Myles' apartment; Myles was annoyed that Ethel began nosing around Renata's cookbook and trying to cosy up to him when she realised he was a widower. Neeve, Jack and Myles all come to realise that Ethel had seen Renata's early designs for the Pacific Reef look in her cookbook, thus giving Ethel the first inkling that Renata was really the one who came up with the design.
• Childhood Friend: Myles Kearny, Salvatore Esposito and Devin Stanton all grew up together in the Bronx and have remained close friends for decades, even referring to themselves as the Three Musketeers. Sal and Devin both supported Myles after Renata was murdered and partly helped raise his daughter Neeve. It comes as a big shock when the other two learn Sal was the one who murdered Myles' wife.
• Conviction by Counterfactual Clue: Discussed; Neeve thinks that the fact all of Ethel's winter coats are still in her closet is a clue she didn't actually go away by herself, given that the night she was last seen it was so cold it snowed. However, Neeve's father points out that Ethel - who is known to be scatterbrained - could've just forgotten to take a coat, or she could've taken one she bought one from a different store, as she doesn't necessarily do all her clothes shopping at Neeve's Place. Neeve concedes her father has a point, but she still thinks it's odd. Of course, the reader knows that Ethel has actually been murdered.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Fashion designer Gordon Steuber hires illegal immigrant women (some of whom are underage) to make his clothes in sweatshops and threatens to turn them in to immigration if they make trouble for him, he cheats on his income taxes, and he smuggles heroin in the linings of his clothes. He's also suspected of murdering one woman and arranging a hit on another. He turns out to be innocent of the last two things. But he's still a thoroughly nasty character; when police ask him about the planned hit, he says he has nothing to do with it, "but what a great idea."
• Costume Porn: Given the novel's emphasis on fashion, Mary Higgins Clark includes many descriptions of high-end 80s clothing and people's outfits, sometimes going into considerable detail on the colours, cuts, materials and patterns.
• Dead Sparks: Seamus and Ruth Lambston's marriage was initially happy, but over the years their financial woes have taken a toll on them. They now spend a lot of time arguing about money, are rarely intimate and hold some resentment towards each other; Seamus is well aware of Ruth's contempt for him, and knows it's because he hasn't aged well and she thinks of him as weak, while he finds that she reminds him more and more of his despised first wife Ethel. Seamus often lies to Ruth or goes behind her back to avoid setting her off, and Ruth comes to fear his anger and believes he really could've killed Ethel despite his protestations of innocence. It's implied that after they're cleared of any involvement in Ethel's murder and are freed of the burden of paying her alimony, their marriage may improve.
• Delegation Relay: This is used as a safety device when a powerful man wants Neeve Kearny killed. The hitman he speaks to gives the job to another hitman, who passes it on to someone else, and so on. By the time the assignment has filtered down through several people, the one doing the actual killing has no idea who ordered it or why. That way, if he's arrested, he won't be able to tell the police anything significant about the crime.
• Destroy the Evidence: Myles realises that Sal intentionally tried to destroy Renata's cookbook when he saw it sitting on the kitchen table, pretending that the coffee maker he'd picked up had a broken handle and spilling hot coffee over the book, even deliberately burning his hand. He also tries to insist Myles give him the book, ostensibly so he can have it repaired. Myles gets suspicious when he sees that the coffee maker's handle doesn't just have a few screws loose, but rather was nearly ripped clean off. When Kitty points out that the book contains drawings of Pacific Reef-style clothing - the design that made Sal famous after Renata died - Myles puts two and two together.
• Didn't Think This Through: Seamus quickly agreed to pay lifetime alimony to Ethel when they got divorced to avoid drawing out the legal side of things and to rid himself of Ethel more quickly, despite his attorney warning him against it. Decades later, Seamus is seriously regretting agreeing to this because the alimony payments are a serious drain on his already-strained finances, making things much worse for him and his family. Seamus didn't expect to have three daughters to support later in life or for his bar to end up struggling, but he wouldn't be in this position if he'd taken his lawyer's advice twenty-two years ago. Ruth also mentions that even when Seamus' bar was doing well, because of the alimony the bank wouldn't approve a mortage payment so they could buy a larger home.
• Differing Priorities Breakup: Neeve explains to Jack that the reason many of her past relationships didn't work out was this; she and her college boyfriend drifted apart when he decided to go to Harvard to study for a Master of Business Administration and she decided to open a fashion boutique in New York, while her next boyfriend got a job in Wisconsin but she didn't want to leave the Big Apple. She says that for various reasons, none of her exes have been "right for [her]". Seeing as Jack has no intention of leaving New York given it's been his dream to live there and their careers (hers in fashion, his in publishing) occasionally overlap, it's indicated he would be an ideal partner for Neeve.
• Disposing of a Body: The killer goes to great lengths to hide Ethel's body and make it seem she just went away early, hoping that if and when her body is finally found it will be assumed she wasn't killed in her apartment, if the police were able to identify her at all. He dresses Ethel in a suit and blouse, removes the labels showing she bought them from Neeve's Place and takes her suitcases - which he dumps in the river - before wrapping her body in a bin liner and transporting the corpse to Morrison State Park, where he hides it in a small opening partly concealed by a boulder in a steep incline. The killer does such a good job that it's not until the middle of the book the body is found by pure chance. However, the killer realises he made a critical error with Ethel's clothes, which Neeve Kearny is bound to notice: mostly, that he put the wrong blouse on Ethel (Neeve had recommended that she wear a different blouse with that suit) and didn't take any of Ethel's winter coats.
• Divorce Assets Conflict: When Seamus and Ethel got divorced twenty-two years ago, Seamus agreed to pay Ethel $1000 a month in lifetime alimony, until she either remarried or died. Ethel told Neeve that she was willing to let Seamus off the hook on alimony, until he made a sarcastic remark in court that it was "worth every cent to get rid of [her]" and that if she did remarry "the guy should be stone deaf". Seamus has come to realise this was a huge mistake, as he's now struggling financially but is still legally on the hook for alimony payments. Ethel doesn't even need the money these days, but she still accepts his cheques out of spite; Seamus recalls that she even reported him for a late payment (which was on the day one of his daughters was born). Seamus' second wife Ruth also constantly argues with him over it. It's revealed that the night Ethel was murdered, Seamus confronted her about the alimony at her apartment and things became heated, with many people, including Ruth, realising he has a clear motive for orchestrating Ethel's disappearance.
• Domestic Abuse:
  • Seamus admits to attacking and threatening his ex-wife over alimony payments, and he soon becomes a prime suspect in her murder. He comes close to hitting his current wife Ruth during an argument and makes threatening remarks towards her as well. Seamus isn't usually a violent man and is shocked at his behaviour, with the immense amounts of stress he's under driving him over the edge.
  • When Seamus says he thinks they should keep paying Ethel alimony, Ruth loses it and slaps her husband hard across the face. She's shocked at herself and apologises immediately, though she still has a tendency to berate and insult Seamus over his failure to resolve their money issues. She later laments that the stress is turning her into a "shrew".
• The Don: Nicky Sepetti is the head of the Sepetti crime family. However, after being released from prison it becomes clear that while he's still offically in charge and is treated in a deferential manner, his subordinate Joey is really the one running things now. Nicky himself realises he's been out of the loop for too long to reclaim his power, not to mention his health is failing. Both he and the NYPD think it's likely he'll be expected to retire, or the gang will force him out in a permanent manner. Nicky does use what influence he has left to advise Joey that Carmen Machado is likely an undercover cop and attempt to call off the hit on Neeve.
• Dramatic Irony: In the prologue, the killer thinks that it's highly unlikely anyone will find Ethel's body, hidden as it is in a crevice on a steep incline in Morrison State Park; he knows the local horse riding school doesn't use the track near the incline because they don't want their customers having any accidents. A few weeks later, Kitty Conway, an amatuer member of the riding school, loses control of her horse and it gallops down the incline, where she happens to spot Ethel's hand sticking out of the crevice.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Myles and Neeve are both furious and horrified to learn their lifelong friend Sal was in fact the one who murdered Renata and Ethel; he also orders a hit on Neeve and attempts to kill her himself to keep his dark secrets hidden.
• False Widow: When she goes out-of-state to visit their children, Nicky's wife Marie tells people she's a widow and uses her maiden name, rather than having to explain her husband is in prison for running an organised crime gang and is suspected of ordering a hit on the police commissioner's wife, or having someone else discover this.
• Family Eye Resemblance: Neeve says that large, dark brown eyes (described as "sherry-colored") with long lashes are a trademark of the Rossetti family, with both Neeve and her mother being described with such eyes.
• The Fashionista:
  • Neeve Kearny loves fashion; she's always well-dressed and runs a successful fashion boutique, Neeve's Place, helping to dress dozens of women in stylish and flattering outfits. Her keen eye for fashion even helps solve the central mystery of what happened to Ethel. Neeve notices something is off about Ethel's clothes: firstly, she has supposedly left town but didn't take any winter coats despite the freezing weather, and when her body is finally found, Neeve believes her killer dressed her in a specific outfit because the blouse she's wearing with her suit is one she would never have picked for herself (while it was the one sold with the suit, Neeve had warned her off it as it clashed with the rest of the outfit), one of her stockings has a significant run in it (Neeve says she would never go out with her stockings in that state) and she isn't wearing any jewellery (which could be used to identify her). The caftan she tended wear around her home is also missing (it was the outfit she actually died in and it got covered in blood). This means Ethel was killed in her apartment and her body dressed to look like she was intending to go out. Neeve also correctly deduces that Ethel's ex-husband didn't kill her because based on his dowdy clothes, he knows little about fashion.
  • Neeve inherited her interest in and talent for fashion from her mother; Renata also had a good eye for fashion and took a part-time job buying clothes for a boutique, often bringing Neeve with her. Renata wasn't afraid to call out merchants trying to sell her unflattering outfits, was always impeccably dressed and believed that "A woman's clothes should fit her like a second skin". She also took it upon herself to help her husband dress better, including laying out his ties for him, as Myles is all but clueless when it comes to fashion. It's revealed that Renata even had the makings of being a great fashion designer, with Sal saying he knew just from looking through her design portfolio that she had The Gift for it; Sal stole her designs and made fashion history with them.
• Fictional Document:
  • Ethel Lambston was writing an article for a magazine about New York's fashion industry; during the research process she also claimed to have found something that could make a bestselling non-fiction book. She had already turned in the article for publication before she disappeared, but was still working on the book, initially leading many people to believe she'd holed up somewhere to finish her manuscript without telling anyone. Neeve and Ethel's potential publisher Jack Campbell end up going through Ethel's extensive notes to find clues as to what happened to her.
  • A moment of comic relief is provided via a manuscript Jack Campbell is reading. It turns out to be an extremely cheesy and ridiculous erotic romance book, revolving around a lonely therapist who finds passion in life again after embarking on a torrid affair with an older client. Jack tells his assistant that the story is "horrendous" but that it will probably sell well regardless. He also questions the heavily idealised sex scenes, saying that having sex out in the garden on a summer night would realistically result in lots of mosquito bites.
• Foreshadowing:
  • At the end of the prologue, the killer realises that Neeve Kearny would notice something off about his attempts to conceal Ethel's murder. This foreshadows that the killer is someone who knows Neeve relatively well, which rules out Douglas Brown and Seamus Lambston, who have never met Neeve (at best, Seamus knows Ethel buys clothes from Neeve).
  • It's mentioned a few times that the year before Renata died, she, Myles and Neeve went on vacation to Hawaii which included snorkelling in the coral reefs. This is truly where the inspiration for the Pacific Reef look came from, not the Chicago Aquarium as Sal claimed.
  • Renata's body was found off the path in Central Park, lying behind the museum; Myles says he always wondered how her killer lured or forced her from the path. Given she knew and trusted her killer, she willingly followed him.
  • Myles says one of his biggest regrets is that he was never able to personally arrest the person who killed Renata. Myles ends up being the one who talks Sal - revealed to be Renata's killer - into surrendering himself to the police.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Myles and Renata first met when Renata was a child and Myles was a young soldier whose wounds meant he didn't recall much. Over a decade later, they met again when Renata was now an adult and had an instant connection. They fell in love so swiftly they married just three weeks later.
• Frame-Up: Sal attempts to frame Gordon Steuber for the assassination contract on Neeve; he puts about a rumour that Gordon hired the assassin because Neeve helped expose some of his illegal and unethical activities (with even the Sepetti crime family believing Gordon is behind it). He also took steps to frame Gordon for Ethel's murder in the event her body is discovered; he dressed Ethel's body in a Steuber-designed suit and knows that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for people to think that Gordon killed her to prevent her from revealing his drug smuggling operation, which she had indeed discovered.
• The Generation Gap: Myles and Neeve experience this from time to time, exacerbated by the fact Myles became a father in his late thirties or early forties and is part of the Greatest Generation (as he was 21 in December 1941 and is currently 68, he was likely born in 1920), while his daughter Neeve is a Baby Boomer (born in either 1962 or 1961). Myles tends to think of Neeve's fashion career as frivolous and often dismisses her concerns as overreactions. He also tends to bug her about getting married, even though at twenty-seven she's hardly a spinster (especially given the book is set in the late 1980s). Neeve considers her career to be the most important thing in her life and isn't too concerned about being single, insisting that when she meets 'Mr Right' she'll know. She also thinks Myles can be chauvinistic and close-minded. Myles does acknowledge his biases and thinks it's a good thing that more men now help out with things like housework (he himself helps Neeve cook and goes grocery shopping); he also questions whether he always took his late wife Renata (who was over a decade younger than him) seriously outside of her role as a spouse and mother.
  Myles: You're the first Kearny in 50 years to vote Republican!
  Neeve: That's not quite the same as losing the faith.
  Myles: It's getting warm.
• Genius Ditz: Ethel Lambston could often come off as scatterbrained and disorganised, but she was actually a lot shrewder and more observant than many people realised, and she was a meticulous researcher. Notably, she was the first person to realise that Anthony della Salva lied about creating the famous Pacific Reef look; it started out with her simply noticing some seemingly anachronistic fashion sketches in a cookbook, before she swiftly pieced together the truth.
• Going for the Big Scoop: Prior to her disappearance, Ethel had been researching the New York fashion scene for a magazine article she was writing, but she had also approached publisher Jack Campbell about a potential deal for a book exposing an "explosive" scandal about the fashion industry she'd uncovered during her research, one too big to simply summarise in an article. After Ethel's body is found, Neeve and Jack wonder if someone in the fashion industry killed Ethel to prevent her from revealing the scandal, especially given Ethel wasn't exactly subtle about her investigations, sometimes even bragging to people's faces that she'd dug up dirt on them. Ethel was indeed murdered because she intended to write an expose on Anthony della Salva's famous Pacific Reef look, revealing that he stole the design (she may also have been close to figuring out he killed the true designer).
• Greed:
  • Ethel was already incredibly generous towards her nephew Doug, but he still helped himself to some of the alimony money she kept stashed around her apartment to buy himself fancy clothes and expensive dinners. After learning Ethel has been murdered, while he's a bit disturbed, Doug is more concerned about getting his hands on the substantial amount of money she bequeathed to him.
  • When Neeve asks Sal why he couldn't have just worked with her mother to create the Pacific Reef clothing line, rather than murdering her to take her designs for himself, Sal flatly states that he never liked to share.
• Gut Feeling:
  • Myles often gets an instinct that something is wrong; he says that a 'sixth sense' runs in the Kearny family, recalling that when he was a boy, his grandmother saw a photo of his cousin and declared "He has death in his eyes" - hours later, they were told the boy had died in an accident. It helps that Myles was a cop for most of his adult life. Myles is certain that Neeve is in danger, although she initially dismisses this as him being overprotective like usual. As it turns out, someone has put a hit out on Neeve although Myles is mistaken in thinking that Nicky Sepetti is behind it.
  • Neeve herself cannot shake the feeling something bad has happened to Ethel Lambston and increasingly senses danger is looming over her, too. She grumbles that "Before long, I'll be really one of those superstitious Irish, always getting a 'feeling' about trouble around the corner" like her father's side of the family - though her instincts in this case are absolutely correct.
• Happily Married: For the most part, Myles and Renata were a happy couple, although it's mentioned on a few occasions that Myles could sometimes be a bit dismissive or patronising towards Renata due to coming from an older generation and a very traditional family; the younger and forward-thinking Renata wouldn't hesitate to call him out on this. There's no doubt they truly loved each other though; Myles regards the years they were married as "the happiest of his life" and was devastated by her death. He does regret that he perhaps didn't always pay attention or listen to her properly, wondering if this was a factor in her death, and laments that although they were married for over a decade, there was so much more to discover about each other until the marriage was brutally cut short. Their daughter Neeve aspires to have a marriage like her parents' once she meets 'the one', with Myles and Sal wondering if she's setting unrealistic expectations for herself given that Myles and Renata's romance occurred in unusual circumstances.
• Her Heart Will Go On: Kitty Conway had a loving marriage with her husband Mike for over thirty years, until Mike unexpectedly died three years ago. Kitty is doing her best to keep busy and enjoy life, including getting involved in lots of hobbies and volunteering, though she clearly misses Mike and often feels lonely (especially as their son is grown up and now lives in Japan with his own family). She ends up bonding with widower Myles Kearny and he's established as a potential new love interest for her.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: It's revealed that Sal has always secretly resented Myles and Devin, especially the former, believing they always looked down on him and treated him like a joke, though he's done an excellent job of hiding this for practically all their lives. It's indicated that Sal is jealous of his friends, because they were able to make successes of themselves off their own merits, while Sal was only able to get his big break by stealing from Myles' wife. Additionally, Sal has had four failed marriages, while Myles was happily married to a beautiful and sophisticated woman with whom he had a child, with Sal stating that Myles never deserved Renata (Devin, a Catholic priest, is celibate by choice).
• High Hopes, Zero Talent: Sal is revealed to have a case of this. He aspired to become a great fashion designer, but while he's not terrible at design, he's never been able to rise above mediocrity. He was regarded as an average student at design school, he struggled to gain any sort of success for decades, Neeve thinks that most of his recent designs are decent but nothing special, and even he admits that he's never been able to surpass his bold and innovative Pacific Reef look in seventeen years... and it turns out he didn't even create it: Neeve's mother Renata did, and she didn't even have a formal education in design. Sal tells Neeve that when Renata showed him her portfolio, he recognised its brilliance and knew Renata had The Gift for fashion, which he simply lacked.
• History Repeats: Ethel was murdered in the exact same way as Renata, by the same killer, because Ethel had discovered his motive for killing his first victim, even if she hadn't quite figured out he was a murderer yet. If she had, she might've been a lot more cautious about confronting him.
• Honorary Uncle: Anthony della Salva is known as "Uncle Sal" to Neeve Kearny; he's been one of her father's best friends since childhood and has known Neeve all her life. Sal took Neeve under his wing after her mother died, nurturing her interest in fashion and encouraging her to open her own boutique when she graduated, even loaning her the down payment for the store. She is very fond of him, visiting him at his office for weekly catch-ups and getting advice from him, while he dotes upon her. This makes it especially shocking and heartbreaking for Neeve when she goes to him for help out of fear of her life, only to realise that he's the one who put a hit on her and killed her mother.
• Hypocrite: Ruth thinks of Ethel as a hypocrite because Ethel posited herself as a feminist writer who championed women's rights and social equality, but she was also taking alimony cheques from her ex-husband that she didn't even need, thus making it more difficult for him to help fund his three daughters' college education.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Growing up, Sal came from a very ordinary, low-income family of vegetable farmers and desperately wanted fame, wealth and respect. He gained it after becoming a successful fashion designer, though his personal life is a bit of a mess and Myles Kearny thinks that part of Sal is still an insecure kid from the Bronx trying to prove himself, especially considering he changed his name and lied about coming from Italian nobility to make himself look better. It's revealed that Sal was so desperate for fame and fortune, he was willing to steal and kill to gain it.
• I Never Told You My Name: A variation occurs in the climax. Denny enters Sal's office looking for Neeve to kill her. Neeve is hiding nearby and overhears Sal call out Denny's name; Denny turns towards him in surprise, giving Sal the opportunity to shoot him dead while he's off-guard. Neeve quickly realises there's something very wrong here, because as far as she knows Sal and Denny didn't know each other and while Neeve had said she knew the man following her, she never mentioned his name to Sal. She soon deduces that Sal knew Denny's name because he hired Denny to kill her (Denny himself never knew who ordered the hit).
• Inheritance Murder: Upon learning that Doug Brown is set to inherit all of Ethel's money and property, but that she may have been considering changing her will after realising Doug was stealing some of her money, the police speculate he could've argued with and murdered Ethel, especially as he just happened to have shown up at her apartment the day after she went missing. Doug is a bit of a slimeball, especially when it comes to his aunt's money, but he didn't kill Ethel and he actually had no idea she was intending to make him the primary beneficiary of the will, or how much he'd receive. He did suspect Ethel was onto him stealing her money, but his plan was to suck up to her as much as possible until she forgave him.
• Inspiration for the Work: In-universe, Sal says he got the inspiration for his award-winning Pacific Reef fashion line from a visit to the Chicago Aquarium's Pacific Reef exhibit in early 1972. It turns out this is a lie, as the exhibit wasn't even open at the time the line was created; the real inspiration were the coral reefs at Maui, which Renata - the true designer - had visited with her family nearly two years earlier.
• Internal Reveal: The prologue reveals that Ethel Lambston has been murdered, detailing the killer's efforts to clean up the crime scene and dispose of her body. Consequently, it takes much longer for the other characters to learn Ethel has been murdered, with some assuming she just left town to work on her new book at the last minute, although Neeve suspects from the start something more sinister has happened.
• It's All My Fault: After discovering the truth behind Renata's murder, Myles sobs that it's his fault because he never listened to her properly or took her interest in fashion seriously, resulting in her going to Sal with her clothing designs, who then killed her to pass off her designs as his own. His friends counter that Renata understandably wanted to go to an expert because she knew Myles was hopeless at fashion, and that it was only natural she would ask her husband's best friend to look at them, as she had no obvious reason not to trust him.
• Jerkass: Douglas Brown is rude, pretentious, self-absorbed and greedy; he moves himself into his aunt's apartment and begins using her bedroom without her permission, not to mention helping himself to her money even though she already spends a fortune on him. Doug mostly spends time with Ethel to take advantage of her generosity towards him and lies to her face about stealing from her. He tends to be irritable and uncooperative with other people for merely inconveniencing him; he's usually only polite and helpful if he thinks there's something in it for him.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Ethel wistfully told Neeve that she'd always wanted children, but her ex-husband refused to have any with her; when he left her she was already thirty-seven and never met anyone else, while her ex went on to have three children with his new wife (which was admittedly unexpected for them). Ethel had some bitterness over it; Seamus recalls that when he tried to persuade Ethel to let him off alimony payments to help fund his daughters' college tuition, Ethel simply replied "They should've been mine". It's also the reason she doted so much on her nephew Doug - even when she suspected him of stealing from her - and intended to make him the beneficiary of her will, because he was the closest thing to a child she'd ever have.
• Make It Look Like an Accident:
  • Denny is ordered to kill Neeve in a such a way that it doesn't obviously look like a deliberate hit, such as shoving her in front of a bus or stabbing her and stealing her handbag; Denny has to carefully follow Neeve looking for opportunities to do so. However, towards the end Denny's handler says Neeve is causing so much trouble that their employer just wants her dead, regardless of it looking like a hit or not.
  • A variation with Renata's murder. Her death was obviously a homicide, but done in a way that it feasibly looked like she was attacked by a random mugger in Central Park, who panicked and slashed her throat when things didn't go according to plan (Neeve speculates that the mugger could've panicked when Renata wouldn't give up her handbag and "started screaming at him in Italian"). Myles is convinced it was a mob hit ordered by Nicky Sepetti, given Sepetti had made a threatening remark about Renata at his sentencing, but there was never any proof to link them. It turns out that Renata was deliberately targeted... but not by Sepetti.
• Miscarriage of Justice: A downplayed example with Nicky Sepetti. He rightfully went to prison for his activities with organised crime, but it's mentioned one of the main reasons he had to serve his full sentence and was repeatedly denied parole was because of the then-police commissioner's belief he had his wife murdered in revenge for putting him away, despite a lack of evidence. It turns out that Sepetti had nothing to do with Renata's murder and would never have even considered going after the commissioner's wife and daughter.
• Moody Mount: Kitty gets saddled with one of the most temperamental horses in her riding school despite her lack of experience; she usually gets a more gentle and cooperative horse better suited to beginners, but her riding instructor gave that horse to an attractive new girl he's hoping to impress. The horse refuses to listen to any of Kitty's commands, then gets spooked and takes off down the trail at top speed, with Kitty clinging on for dear life before getting thrown off. When the riding instructor finally reaches her and says she should've controlled the horse better, Kitty quits on the spot, deciding that "the sport of kings" just isn't for her. The event does prove fortuitous in a grim way, as the horse carried Kitty right past the place where Ethel's body is hidden, enabling Kitty to glimpse Ethel's hand and raising her suspicions enough to return to the spot later, finding the body.
• Motive Rant: Sal goes on one to Neeve when he's revealed to be the killer of Renata and Ethel, and the one who hired Denny to kill Neeve, explaining to both her and the reader why he did all of it - namely, he stole Renata's fashion designs because he knew he'd never come up with something that brilliant and killed her to keep this from coming out, killed Ethel when she discovered the designs were stolen, then tried to kill Neeve because she would realise Ethel had been murdered after seeing through his attempt to conceal the crime. Neeve exploits this, getting Sal to keep talking to delay him from killing her until help arrives (though it's also because she genuinely wants to know why her beloved Uncle Sal would've done such terrible things).
• The Mourning After: Myles never met anyone else in the seventeen years after his beloved wife Renata was murdered. Their daughter thinks it's a shame and a sign that he's still hung up on her death; while Neeve is obviously grieved by Renata's death, she has been able to move on with her life and wishes Myles would do the same, saying Renata wouldn't want him to be miserable and lonely. Myles threw himself into his work to distract himself from Renata's death, but was forced to retire last year. He finally ends up meeting and bonding with widow Kitty Conway, with it being implied that they will eventually become a couple.
• My Nayme Is: Inverted; Neeve explains to Jack that her name is actually spelt Niamh, which is the traditional Celtic spelling. However, she says that when she opened her clothing boutique she began using the phonetic spelling "Neeve" (which is also used throughout the novel) because it saved her the time and effort of explaining how to correctly pronounce her name, not to mention avoiding the "aggravation" caused by uninformed people calling her "Nim-uh".
• Noble Demon: Nicky Sepetti may be the head of an organised crime family who dobs in undercover cops knowing they'll get killed, but he also genuinely loves his wife and children, he's repulsed by some of the stuff the Sepetti gang has gotten into in his absence (such as dealing hard drugs) and he would never intentionally harm a woman or child. He's furious when he finds out about the assassination contract on Neeve Kearny - the rest of the gang initially thought he'd pleased by the news given his contempt for Neeve's father - and in his final moments he attempts to warn the police about it, though he dies before he can explain.
• Nom de Mom: After being released from prison, Nicky Sepetti learns that his son changed his surname from Sepetti to his mother's maiden name of Damiano, in order to distance himself from his father, a convicted criminal who is notorious for allegedly ordering the murder of a police commissioner's wife. Nicky feels pretty hurt about this, but understands his son's actions.
• Not Helping Your Case: Seamus Lambston didn't kill his ex-wife, but many of his subsequent actions make him look so guilty he quickly becomes the number one suspect once Ethel's body is found. Even his wife is convinced he did it; her own response doesn't much help Seamus, either. The night Ethel was murdered, Seamus loudly argued with her about alimony and ended up physically attacking and threatening her. He then puts an envelope in Ethel's mailbox containing both the monthly alimony cheque and a letter thanking Ethel for agreeing to end the payments; Seamus did this by mistake but it looks to a lot of people like he's trying to deflect suspicion. Ethel's neighbours see him when he tries to retrieve the envelope, and he panics and flees, with the neighbours thinking that he had returned to try and hide evidence. Seamus keeps lying to Ruth about what happened that night, so it's unsurprising she also thinks he's lying about not killing Ethel. Then Ruth takes back the letter and threatens Doug into keeping quiet about it, also taking the opportunity to steal the letter opener used to kill Ethel and trying to dispose of it in case it's got Seamus' fingerprints on it. And then it turns out Seamus also paid a regular at his bar to make threatening phone calls to Ethel. When Seamus is questioned by the cops, he quickly breaks down and starts begging for a lawyer; he also fails a polygraph. His own lawyer thinks that Seamus is either the real killer, or just a complete moron.
• Not Me This Time: When Mafia boss Nicky Sepetti was about to be sent to prison, he made a threatening remark to Police Commissioner Myles Kearny about how his wife and daughter might need some protection. When Myles's wife Renata was murdered less than two months later, everyone naturally assumes that Sepetti was behind it. He denies this until the day he dies (literally), but the police and Renata's family are not convinced. It turns out Renata's murder was completely unrelated to the Mafia; she was designing a glamorous fashion line and a designer she knew killed her so he could steal her ideas. Sepetti also had nothing at all to do with Ethel's murder and the hit on Neeve; Renata's killer is behind this as well.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Seamus married his second wife because she was the complete opposite of his first wife; Ethel was messy, unorganised and never stopped talking, while Ruth is tidy, efficient and quiet. However, he notes that over the years Ruth has come to increasingly resemble Ethel due to her non-stop complaints about their financial situation and criticisms of him.
• Obvious Villain, Secret Villain: The reader is made aware early on that Denny Adler, the man who works at a coffee shop Neeve frequents, is actually a hitman hired to kill her. However, the identity of the person who hired Denny is left a mystery until near the end, with even Denny being unaware of his employer's identity. It's eventually revealed to be Anthony della Salva.
• Only Friend: Neeve Kearny was the closest thing Ethel Lambston had to a best friend and confidant. Neeve is one of the few people who is genuinely concerned about Ethel's disappearance and is more upset than she realises she would be when she learns Ethel was murdered. Although Neeve is well aware of Ethel's flaws, she still respected and cared for her, and also felt sorry for her when she realised what a lonely person she was, regretting not sending Ethel flowers on her birthday (Ethel had mentioned that her birthday was also Valentine's Day and that for years she had had to buy herself flowers). Neeve having invited Ethel to her Christmas party also turns out to be key to the entire plot.
• Parents as People: Myles undoubtedly loves his daughter, but he is a flawed parent. Much to her frustration, Neeve finds that Myles doesn't always take her seriously; he treats her career in fashion as more of an expensive hobby and dismisses her concerns about Ethel's disappearance as an overactive imagination. When Ethel's body shows up and it's obvious she's the victim of a homicide, Myles grimly realises Neeve was right. Neeve still has a hard time convincing him that there's something off about Ethel's clothes, though he slowly starts to come around.
• Patchwork Kids: Neeve is described as having inherited a fairly even amount of features from both parents; she has her mother's dark curly hair and dark, "sherry-colored" eyes, and her father's pale skin, full lips and rangy build. This applies to personality traits too, with Myles remarking that Neeve has been "either blessed or cursed with a Roman temperament and Irish thin skin".
• Peaceful in Death: Myles recalls that even with her throat cut and blood all over her coat, Renata looked as though she could be sleeping rather than dead; he wonders if the deputy commissioner shut her eyes out of respect, or if she closed her eyes in her final moments. At her funeral, Sal tried to comfort Myles by telling him to "Try to think of your pretty one as sleeping", to which Myles flatly replied "She's not sleeping. She's dead."
• Poor Communication Kills: A justified example; after barely surviving being shot by the Sepetti gang, Tony Vitale is stuck in a hospital bed and he's either unconscious or hardly lucid when he's awake because of all the medication he's on. He tries to tell his superiors that there's a contract to kill Neeve Kearny, but Nicky Sepetti isn't the one who ordered it. Unfortunately, all he's able to get across to the other cops is "Sepetti...no contract", which they assume to mean there's no contract at all and Neeve is safe. Tony is eventually able to communicate that he learned Gordon Steuber put out the hit, prompting the cops to move against him and bust him for heroin smuggling, though they still have to find a way to foil the assassin, not to mention Gordon is actually being set-up by the real killer.
• Posthumous Character:
  • Renata Rossetti Kearny was murdered seventeen years and five months ago, yet she's given quite a bit of characterisation and is often mentioned by her husband Myles and daughter Neeve, who were both irrevocably affected by her violent death (especially Myles, who has struggled to come to terms with it). Renata turns out to be extremely important to the plot given the revelation Ethel Lambston's killer murderered her because she figured out why he killed Renata.
  • Ethel Lambston is killed shortly before the novel begins and never appears alive outside of flashbacks. We get to find out quite a lot about her as a person and what she was doing in the months and weeks leading up to her murder, which is vital to uncovering why she was murdered and whodunnit. Some of Ethel's research notes help to solve her own murder as well as Renata Kearny's murder.
• Prematurely Gray Haired: Myles' hair had turned completely white by the time he was in his late forties (he was working as a US attorney and later as police commissioner in New York City, in a time period when crime was at an all time high), although it's noted that it suits him.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Neeve Kearny is described as a strikingly beautiful woman with milk-white skin and black hair, getting her features from both her Irish-American father and her Italian mother. Even the man hired to assassinate her thinks she's "a good-looking babe" and that it's a pity he has to waste her.
• Red Herring:
  • Seamus Lambston's violent argument with Ethel over the alimony payments. It turns out that Seamus didn't murder Ethel, but he did threaten to kill her and punched her hard enough to knock her to the ground, prompting her to grab a letter opener to defend herself and Seamus to wrestle it from her, nicking her cheek. The same letter opener was later used to cut her throat, with Seamus being terrified of her reporting him for assault and later being accused of her murder; he inadvertently incriminates himself in his attempts to cover up his involvement.
  • Gordon Steuber isn't the one who ordered the hit on Neeve, nor did he kill Ethel; he certainly doesn't like either of them for exposing his dirty business practices, but the last thing he wants is more attention from the police given he's using his clothes to smuggle heroin. The real killer does try to set him up for the murder, as he'd be the ideal scapegoat. Ethel had uncovered and confronted him about the heroin smuggling, but she was also working on exposing an even bigger, unrelated scandal in the fashion world, which is what got her killed.
  • Nicky Sepetti has nothing to do with Ethel's murder and wasn't remotely involved in Renata's murder either; neither woman's death was connected to organised crime.
  • Douglas Brown's theft of his aunt's money and her threat to cut him from her will. While Doug was concerned Ethel had become aware of his thieving, he wasn't even aware she was naming him as the will's primary beneficiary, nor that she was considering changing her will, until after she died.
  • In the climax, Sal takes Denny's gun with the intention of killing Neeve with it to frame Denny, placing his own gun on a nearby table. When Jack sneaks into the building to rescue Neeve from Sal, he spots the gun and wonders if he will able to reach it unnoticed. However, before he can get near it Myles arrives and talks Sal into surrendering.
• Rescue Romance:
  • A long-winded example occurred between Myles and Renata. While fighting in Northern Italy during World War Two, Myles was injured and discovered by a young local girl, Renata Rossetti. She guided him to her family's house to get treatment and shelter. Long after the war was over, Myles sought out the Rossetti family to thank them and was reacquainted with the now-grown Renata, with the pair quickly falling in love.
  • Although her father ends up being the one to save her from the killer, Neeve clearly appreciates that Jack came to her rescue when he realised she was in danger and it's treated as a given that they will begin a relationship, with Neeve even believing he's 'the one'.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • It's noted that while he's still successful, none of Sal's subsequent designs have ever quite lived up to the phenomenal Pacific Reef look, though he thinks his newest fall collection will at least come close. This is almost certainly because he didn't come up with the original design.
  • Myles recalls how when he, Devin and Sal were playing together as children, Sal accidentally ran over Myles' arm with a sled and broke it, with Devin taking the blame because Sal cried that his father would "kill him". This wouldn't be the last time Sal was willing to let someone else take the fall for other - albeit far more serious - misdeeds.
• Second Love: It's strongly implied that Myles and Kitty will end up being this to each other; they've both been widowed for some time (Myles for seventeen years, Kitty for three years) and end up forming a close bond after connecting over the Ethel Lambston case. Myles in particular finds that Kitty is one of first people he's met in years who made him forget his grief for his First Love, Renata, and feel optimistic about the future again.
• Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Initially, no one knows Ethel is dead and Neeve spends nearly the first half of the book trying to figure out where she might've gone, feeling there's something wrong about her just taking off like this. Most of the other characters dismiss Neeve's suspicions... until Kitty Conway discovers Ethel's body in Morrison State Park, at which point the characters realise she's been Dead All Along.
• Serial Spouse: Sal has been married four times, with each of his marriages ending in divorce, and he may be about to get engaged to his current girlfriend. He's light-hearted about it and his friends occasionally tease him over it, though it's implied that deep down he's a lot more insecure about it than he lets on.
• Shipper on Deck: Neeve can barely contain her happiness that her father has taken a romantic interest in Kitty Conway, as she's long wished Myles would meet someone new and thinks Kitty is a good influence on him. Neeve light-heartedly teases Myles when he refers to Kitty as "pretty".
• Slashed Throat:
  • Renata Kearny's throat was slashed twice with a blade, in a V-like pattern, with one cut going up to her left ear and slicing through her jugular vein.
  • Ethel Lambston's throat was cut with an ornate Indian dagger she used as a letter opener, which she kept on her desk; a medical examination finds that her throat was slashed first horizontally then vertically, in a V-like shape, severing both her jugular vein and her windpipe. The fact she was killed in the exact same way as Renata eventually leads the police and the Kearnys to suspect it was the same killer. They're right.
• Snow Means Death:
  • The novel takes place in late March and early April and it's noted by several characters that it's unusually cold for spring; it's still freezing out and it snows heavily at the start of the story. This becomes a plot point, as Ethel Lambston's body is better preserved than usual due to the cold temperatures, allowing for more evidence to be gathered. Neeve also picks up on the fact that despite the chilly weather, Ethel didn't take any of her winter coats when she supposedly left town, convincing her there's something off about Ethel's disappearance from the start.
  • Renata Kearny was murdered on a bleak, snowy afternoon in November of 1971, as she was on her way to pick up her daughter from school. Myles noted that the white of the snow made the blood from her slashed throat stand out even more. Because it was so cold out, there were also few people in Central Park, so there were no witnesses to the crime either.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • A simple phone call to the Chicago Aquarium ends up unravelling Sal's story about how he came up with the Pacific Reef look. Sal always claimed he came up with the idea after visiting the aquarium's Pacific Reef exhibit in early 1972 and launched the design later that same year. However, when Jack calls the aquarium's director to double-check when the exhibit opened, following clues in Ethel's notes, he learns that the Pacific Reef exhibit didn't open to the public until a year later because there were problems with the tanks (something the aquarium doesn't exactly like to advertise), meaning that unless Sal had a time machine he couldn't have seen the exhibit before the Pacific Reef line was created and launched. The aquarium's director mentions that Ethel had called weeks earlier enquiring about the same thing, with Jack coming to the same conclusion she did: Sal lied about the inspiration for the Pacific Reef look because he didn't create it.
  • Neeve and Myles both separately realise there's something off with Sal's story about the Pacific Reef look because of the sketches in Renata's cookbook. They hadn't really paid attention before, but eventually they both realise that some of Renata's sketches are of clothing in the Pacific Reef style. Neeve realises this when she spots the Pacific Reef patterns on some of Sal's newest designs and recalls recently seeing the same patterns drawn in her mother's cookbook and copied into Ethel's notes - meaning Ethel obviously found it important too. Myles realises it when Kitty sees a drawing of Neeve wearing a Pacific Reef-style outfit in the cookbook and remarks that she "must've been one the first children to wear the Pacific Reef look". It occurs to both Myles and Neeve that if Sal claimed to have come up with the look a few months after Renata died, but Renata had drawings of the design in her personal cookbook sketched three months before her death, something clearly doesn't add up.
• Stalker without a Crush: Denny Adler is a hitman who is hired to kill Neeve Kearny, so he spends a lot of time following her about looking for an opportunity to do the deed. He does actually have a bit of a crush on her, but he dismisses his feelings and it's not the reason he's stalking her.
• Stealing the Credit: An especially dark example. Sal stole Renata's idea for a line of clothing inspired by the Pacific Reef, which made Sal a household name in designer fashion. He ensured Renata couldn't tell on him by murdering her and is prepared to commit more murders to keep this hidden.
• Supreme Chef: Renata was noted to be an excellent cook and wrote down all her family's Northern Italian recipes in a special book. Myles says that she taught him to experiment with and really enjoy food (he says his mother was "a wonderful woman" but not a particularly good cook). Neeve has inherited her mother's cooking skills, while Myles thinks he can at least make "a damn good salad".
• Talking the Monster to Death: When Myles confronts Sal about his crimes, Myles isn't remotely fazed by Sal pointing a gun at him; he tells him that the cops are already on their way and that Sal should either drop the gun or use it on himself, because he has no hope of getting away with it now. Sal chooses the former.
• They Know Too Much: It's revealed that Sal Esposito killed Ethel Lambston because she'd confronted him with her knowledge that he stole the Pacific Reef design from Renata Kearny and planned to write about it in a tell-all book. Knowing that if she exposed him it would likely ruin his career and would potentially lead to him finally being linked to Renata's death, Sal murdered Ethel and went to great lengths to conceal the crime. He later preemptively hires a hitman to murder Neeve Kearny, after he realises she would likely pick up on something being off about Ethel's disappearance and blow the whole thing open. 
• Tragic Keepsake: Renata owned a cookbook where she wrote down all her family's recipes, added notes to improve other recipes, and sometimes included doodles and sketches, especially of her young daughter. Neeve still regularly uses the cookbook for the recipes, though she can't bring herself to look at the sketches because the memories they bring up are too painful. Myles doesn't look at the pages either, but tends to be protective of the book, getting annoyed at Ethel for nosing through it and only just being able to hold it together when Sal accidentally spills coffee on it. Sal himself is deeply apologetic, knowing how much the book means to Myles and Renata.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: Carmen Machado, a newer member of the Sepetti crime family, is actually an undercover NYPD detective named Tony Vitale. When Nicky Sepetti outs him as a cop, Tony is shot and tossed in a dumpster. He actually survives, but is hospitalised and slips in and out of consciousness throughout the rest of the novel. Shortly before his cover was blown, Tony had learned that there was a hit out on Neeve Kearny (though not one ordered by the Sepettis) and he tries desperately to warn someone about this.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Fashion-conscious Neeve Kearny never wears the same outfit twice and at some points changes her outfit more than once in the same day. She even changes into a brand new outfit specifically to view the clothes Ethel Lambston was wearing when she died, with her father grumbling that he doesn't see the point wasting all that money and time on a dead woman.
• Villainous Crush: Denny Adler, a conman, thief and occasional hitman with connections to organised crime, finds Neeve Kearny quite attractive and appreciates that she's genuinely kind to him. He thinks it's a real shame when he gets hired to murder her, but he brushes aside any sentimentality to get the job done.
• Villains Want Mercy: After surrendering to Myles, Sal drops to the ground, wraps his arms around Myles' legs and begs him to speak up for him, saying he didn't mean to do any of it. Considering that Sal has brutally murdered three people in cold blood - one of whom was Myles' own wife - and nearly killed Myles' daughter, Myles isn't exactly accomodating.
• Woman Scorned: The reason Ethel still takes alimony cheques from her ex-husband twenty-two years after they split up is rooted in feelings of resentment and betrayal; she always wanted children but Seamus wouldn't consider it, then divorced her when she was in her late thirties, by which point it was likely too late for Ethel (Seamus mentions it came as a shock to him and his second wife when they had their daughters in their forties). It's also subtly hinted he may have been unfaithful to her, seeing as he married Ruth just three months after his divorce from Ethel was finalised. Ethel's attitude towards the situation is that Seamus abandoned her and robbed her of a family (then went on to have a family with his new wife) and that if he was too stupid and spineless to fight the alimony payments, that's on him.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • Seamus got so angry with his ex-wife Ethel that he punched her in the face, nearly breaking her jaw, which he says was a shock to both of them. He then cut her chin with a letter opener when he wrenched it off her. He didn't kill her though.
  • Denny Adler has few qualms about killing Neeve Kearny, save for the fact killing the ex-police commissioner's daughter will potentially bring down the entirety of New York's finest on him.
  • Sal is willing to kill women; he cut the throats of both Renata and Ethel, and nearly shoots Neeve.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Nicky Sepetti, as it turns out. He says he was willing to do just about anything to prove himself to the mob, but he drew the line at harming women, finding it distasteful. Although he made a threatening remark about Myles' wife and daughter at his sentencing, he didn't mean it seriously; he had nothing to do with Renata's murder and tries to get the hit on Neeve stopped.
• Writers Cannot Do Math:
  • Myles and Renata are said to have married in 1958 and had eleven years together before Renata was murdered in the month of November. However, this means she would've died in November of 1969 (or perhaps November of 1970, if she and Myles hadn't yet had their twelfth wedding anniversary and Myles was being pedantic about dates), but it's repeatedly stated she died seventeen years before the main events of the story, which is set in March/April of 1989, so the years don't add up.^spoilers Sal also claimed to have come up with the Pacific Reef look a few months after Renata's death in early 1972, which is stated to have been seventeen years ago, only for it to be revealed this is a lie as Renata came up with the design three months before her death and Sal killed her to steal it from her, which puts her death in late 1971 Neeve was also 10 when her mother died and was 21 six years ago, and Renata was killed a month after Nicky Sepetti was sentenced to seventeen years in prison and he only recently got out, which places Renata's death in either 1971 or 1972.
  • It's also stated at one point that Renata was 34 when she died, but as she was said to have been 10 when she met Myles in 1944 or 1945^note It's stated that Myles joined the army aged 21 the day after Pearl Harbour - which occurred in December 1941 - that he met Renata "three years later" during the Italian Campaign and is currently 68 years old and she was 23 (potentially nearly 24) when she married Myles in 1958, this would've made her around 36 or 37 when she died in 1971. If she were 34 at the time, she would had to have been born in 1937 or 1936 (seeing as her birth month isn't specified), which would've made her younger than 10 during World War Two.
• You Remind Me of X: On a few occasions Myles says that Neeve reminds him of her late mother. Following a small argument Neeve starts slamming the pots and pans around in the kitchen as she's preparing dinner, to which Myles ruefully says Renata would do the same thing when she was angry at him. When Neeve is wearing a blue outfit, Myles says that he always thought Renata looked especially beautiful in blue and that Neeve looks more and more like her as she gets older.

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