In The Lost Years, Mary Higgins Clark, America's Queen of Suspense, has written her most astonishing novel to date. At its center is a discovery that, if authenticated, may be the most revered document in human history-"the holiest of the holy"-and certainly the most coveted and valuable object in the world.

Biblical scholar Jonathan Lyons believes he has found the rarest of parchments-a letter that may have been written by Jesus Christ. Stolen from the Vatican Library in the 1500s, the letter was assumed to be lost forever.

Now, under the promise of secrecy, Jonathan is able to confirm his findings with several other experts. But he also confides in a family friend his suspicion that someone he once trusted wants to sell the parchment and cash in.

Within days Jonathan is found shot to death in his study. At the same time, his wife, Kathleen, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, is found hiding in the study closet, incoherent and clutching the murder weapon. Even in her dementia, Kathleen has known that her husband was carrying on a long-term affair. Did Kathleen kill her husband in a jealous rage, as the police contend? Or is his death tied to the larger question: Who has possession of the priceless parchment that has now gone missing?

It is up to their daughter, twenty-eight-year-old Mariah, to clear her mother of murder charges and unravel the real mystery behind her father's death. Mary Higgins Clark's The Lost Years is at once a breathless murder mystery and a hunt for what may be the most precious religious and archaeological treasure of all time.

Mary Higgins Clark was born and raised in New York. Her father died when she was ten. After graduating from high school, her first jobs were as a secretary and an airline stewardess. She flew to Europe, Asia, and Africa for a year, then married Warren Clark, a neighbor of her family nine years older than herself. Warren died in 1964, leaving her with five children. So Clark began to write in earnest. Clark had begun writing short stories when she was first married with little success. After six years and forty rejections, her first story was published by Extension Magazine in 1956 for $100. After becoming a widow she set out to write a novel. The result was Aspire to the Heavens, a piece of biographical fiction about George Washington. This too was poorly received. Undeterred, Clark wrote a novel of suspense, Where Are the Children? published in 1975, which finally became a bestseller. Clark had found her voice, and has since produced sixteen more bestsellers, including While My Pretty One Sleeps, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Moonlight Becomes You, and Pretend You Don't See Her. Clark has received numerous honors including the Grand Prix de Literature of France (1980) and the Horatio Alger Award (1997). She received the Gold Medal of Honor from the American-Irish Historical Society and the Spirit of Achievement Award from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. She is a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory, a Dame of Malta, and a Dame of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. She has thirteen honorary doctorates.