A large measure of the success of Clark's novels resides in her literary style, which is dominated by a straightforward prose and a compressed time frame. The style allows her novels to be easily accessible to a broad readership; it moves smoothly along and drives the narrative with it. Like much other popular fiction of the same type, her novels can be easily read at one sitting. This gives them the same compression of effect that Edgar Allan Poe demanded of his short stories. This concise form is an excellent vehicle for the thriller which relies on the essential ingredient of compounding of events for its tension. One of the reasons genre fiction has remained so popular is that it does not require close reading to deliver its effects. That such fiction is also capable of sustaining analysis or that it can be read at a more leisurely...