Trivia / Where Are the Children?

• Breakthrough Hit: Where Are the Children? was Mary Higgins Clark's second published novel and her first big hit. Previously, she'd only written short stories and a historical novel that sold poorly. Where Are the Children? quickly became a bestseller and launched her long, successful career as a suspense novelist.
• Inspiration for the Work: Mary Higgins Clark stated the inspiration for the story was a real criminal case that was all over the news at the time; a New York woman, Alice Crimmins, had been repeatedly tried for killing her two young children in 1965, with there being much speculation over whether she was responsible.^note Crimmins was found guilty of the manslaughter of her daughter Alice in 1968, with the conviction being overturned on appeal. In a second trial in 1971, Crimmins was found guilty of manslaughter again and was also found guilty of the first-degree murder of her son Eddie. In 1973, both convictions were overturned before Crimmins was once again found guilty of Alice's manslaughter in a third trial that same year; she was paroled in 1977.
  Mary Higgins Clark: Suppose a beautiful young mother is accused and later convicted of the deliberate murder of her two young children. Suppose she gets out of prison because the conviction is overturned on a technicality? Suppose she remarries and starts a new life, then seven years to the day her two children died, the two children from her second marriage disappear?
• Similarly Named Works: The book's title is one word off Where Are My Children? and Where Are Your Children?; the former is a drama film centred around abortion and birth control made in 1916, the latter is a 1943 drama movie about teen delinquency. The 1975 book is a thriller about a young mother accused of killing her missing children.
• Working Title: The original title Mary Higgins Clark came up with was Die a Little Death, taken from a memoir of one of King Louis XIV's mistresses, specifically the part where she describes her grief over the death of her baby ("And I with my baby died a little death"). Higgins Clark later changed it to Where Are the Children? at the request of her editor, as she felt Die a Little Death was too suggestive of a "hard-edged crime story", whereas Where are the Children? was agreed to be more compelling and tonally-fitting.

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