Do You Want to Know a Secret?

The behind-the-scenes commotions and rivalries of national television news provide a lively background for this debut thriller. Clark, a producer and writer at CBS News (and the former daughter-in-law of Mary Higgins Clark), spins a tightly knit whodunit with engaging characters and a suspenseful plot. Eliza Blake, a young mother and widow, is a rising star at KEY-TV, where she coanchors the morning news. After the network's revered evening anchorman, Bill Kendall, is found dead in his New York apartment, Blake finds herself competing for Kendall's assignments with his nefarious heir apparent, Pete Carlson. Soon others close to Blake are killed, and her world is shaken by her fears for her daughter's safety, and for her own. Clark's speedy, clear prose offers readers her insider's view of the broadcast-news business as KEY goes on location, conducts live TV interviews and covers a national political convention. She draws her hot topics from real headlines--AIDS, presidential campaign tactics and politicians' sex lives among them--and her journalists debate very current questions. (""Someone's got to draw the line somewhere as to what is personal in a public figure's life,"" one says). The few stereotyped minor characters--the slavishly devoted secretary, the homeless schizophrenic whose obsession provides a clue to the murders--don't detract from Clark's refreshing surprise ending, a very '90s version of ""the butler did it."" (Nov.)