The Lottery Winner Essay, Research Paper

Blake Moreland

The Lottery Winner

Clark, Mary

Pocket Books

1994

SETTING:

The book starts out in Manhattan, New York in modern times. The book mostly takes place in New York city but throughout the book they also travel to London, England, cypress point spa, and several other places. The book ends back in Manhattan, New York.

CHARACTERS:

1.

Alvirah Meehan is a former maid that is near her sixties and has quit her job after her and her husband struck it rich in the winning of the lottery. Alvirah started taking interest in helping people with murders and other problems that she ran across while traveling across the world. After she had won the lottery the New York Globe news paper had asked her to write about all of her different adventures.

2.

Willy Meehan is around his sixties, he has blue eyes with white hair. Willy is a former plumber who quit his job after wining the lottery with his wife Alvirah. Willy enjoys traveling with Alvirah to all the different places. He is very supportive and help full to Alvirah in her interest of helping others with there crimes. He also enjoys helping the poor or just those people that can’t afford to hire a plumber so he dose the job for free.

3.

Brian who is somewhere around his twenties, he is an up and coming famous play writer. Brian is the nephew of Willy. Brian is first introduced in the first story called “The body in the closet”. He was staying at the apartment of Willy and Alvirah were a body was found in there closet at there return from there trip to England. He becomes the main suspespect in the murder because he was the last be in the apartment. This was not a good thing for Brian because his career was just taking off with all the great plays he was writing. Brian becomes very lucky with the help of Alvirah as they prove his innocence. Brian then was able to go back on with is writings of the plays.

4.

Cynthia Lathem was found guilty for the murder of her father in the second story. It all happened when she was in her junior year of the Rhode Island School of Design when her step father Stuart Richards was found shot to death in the study of his mansion. Cynthia spent 12 years in prison for the murder. She spent the time thinking and asking herself “who could have set me up.” Cynthia knew that she was innocent and that’s when she meet Alvirah who was the answer to all her problems because she was about to help prove her innocence. Cynthia proved her innocence and then went on to marry and enjoy her life.

5.

Rhonda Alvirez the winner of six million dollars. She was latter cheated out of the money by her husband when he swapped the ticket with a ticket bought by the lady he had thought he fell in love with. A lady that he had been having an affair with. His intentions where to run off with her, but things got out of hand and he was killed. Rhonda then became the main suspect in the murder only to make things worse in her life. But once again Alvirah was to the rescue she meet her and Alvirah began to take over by going through her crime solving technics. With the help of Alvirah Rhonda was found not guilty and received the six million dollars that was so rightfully hers.

Plot:

The book starts out with Alvirah and willy returning from their trip from England just after they struck it rich in the lottery. Alvirah takes interest in solving crimes and murders so at each trip she ends up in getting herself into something or another dealing with crime. She helps many people throughout the book where it ends back in New York where she solves her last crime.

Theme:

The theme of the book was that Alvirah in how she won the lottery and found herself to be very good at crime solving as she travels the world helping people as well as in her home town Manhattan, New York. She wanted to be apart of everything no matter how much harm it would bring to herself. There was at least one time in the book where she almost had her own life taken by another person while trying to help solve a crime. I think that Alvirah learns in this book that she could have been a lot better detective than just a cleaning lady.

Opinion:

The book was very interesting. It was always hard to find a place to quit reading. The book was very suspenseful always leaving you to guess what could possible happen next. I was always on the edge of my chair waiting and wondering what could possibly happen next. I would recommend the book to anyone that enjoys reading suspenseful books.

Bibliography

Author’s Biography:

Mary was born and raised in New York. She is of Irish descent who considers her Irish heritage an important influence on her writing. Marys father died when she was just Ten years old leaving her mom to raise her and her and her two brothers. After she graduated she went on to secretarial school so that she could get a job to help her mother with family fiances. She went on to marry a neighbor who she had known since she was 16 years old. Then later her husband died leaving her to raise there five children. Shortly after she became more known before she became the writer she is today. Who we refer to as the AMERICA’S QUEEN OF SUSPENSE.

Author’s Biography:

Mary was born and raised in New York. She is of Irish descent who considers her Irish heritage an important influence on her writing. Marys father died when she was just Ten years old leaving her mom to raise her and her and her two brothers. After she graduated she went on to secretarial school so that she could get a job to help her mother with family fiances. She went on to marry a neighbor who she had known since she was 16 years old. Then later her husband died leaving her to raise there five children. Shortly after she became more known before she became the writer she is today. Who we refer to as the AMERICA’S QUEEN OF SUSPENSE.