Imagine Nick and Nora Charles with a taste for politics and none for gin, and you'd be pretty close to Mary Higgins Clark's Henry Parker Britland IV and his attractive young wife, Sandra O'Brien Britland, known as Sunday. Henry, possessor of an enormous inherited fortune and known as one of America's sexiest men, has just finished his second term as president of the United States and is happily retired at 44, puttering around his New Jersey country estate. Sunday, who bootstrapped her way up from a modest working-class background, is a junior congresswoman with a reputation for smarts. The two met, romantically enough, on the eve of Henry's leaving office, fell madly in love, and were married six weeks later. In this collection of four pleasantly readable stories, the sleuthing duo catch the murderer of a statesman's flashy amour, endure Sunday's kidnapping and mastermind her rescue, solve the 34-year-old mystery of the disappearance of a foreign prime minister from the Britland family yacht, and reunite a ransomed boy with his parents at Christmas. Of the four, "They All Ran After the President's Wife" may be the best plotted, and has a particularly amusing McGuffin in the character of a caviar-loving terrorist. While the suspense is on the mild side throughout, the romance is lighthearted but sincere, and the occasional flashes of wit are dryly appealing. It's a bonbon, to be enjoyed for its brief sweetness.

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very entertaining, 5 short stories, an easy and fast and enjoyable read

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I could have enjoyed this better if the first story had been fleshed out a bit.

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I loved the love between the husband and wife!!

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I read and enjoyed We’ll Meet Again and The Shadow of Your Smile, so I picked this one up, as I was interested to read an MHC book about politicians. I was pretty disappointed. The writing is very flat, not at all exciting or suspenseful like the other two, and the characters are appealing but underdeveloped. I read the first story in full and thought it rather worthless, but I decided to read the second, hoping it would be better. It was so boring I just skipped to the end to learn how it turned out. I moved on to the third and found it so boring I didn’t even bother reading the ending. I don’t know if MHC was on autopilot here or what, but this is probably for her diehard fans only; new readers ought to check out The Shadow of Your Smile to start.

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Great story for a quick read ..

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Henry Parker Britland IV is wealthy and worldly--a beloved former president who, still youthful, is enjoying early retirement. His new wife, Sunday, is beautiful, smart and seventeen years younger than he, and has just been elected to Congress in a stunning upset victory that has made her the darling of the media.

Henry and Sunday make a formidable team of sleuths--and never more so than when they set out to solve crimes occurring among their friends in political high society.

When Henry's former secretary of state is indicted for the murder of his mistress, Henry and Sunday suspect he is taking the fall for a crime of passion he did not commit. But why?

With cases raging from a crime on the presidential yacht to a kidnapping that brings Henry back to the White House as he races against time to unravel the plot, there is never a dull moment for the ex-president and his bride--or the reader.

With her wit and gift for characterization, the creator of the popular Alvirah and Willy stories brings us another marvelously endearing sleuthing duo, destined to return again and again.

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Thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characteres and plot were great, Mary Higgins Clark is always a good read, holds your attention.

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