Another terrific story by Andrew Gross who seemingly had his writing career boosted to stardom by writing several books in collaboration with James Patterson. In “Eyes Wide Open” Jay Erlich, a physician had a wonderful family. Kathy was his wife and they had two grown children. Unfortunately, Jay had an older half-brother, Charley, who was not a good family man. Yes, he was married and had a son, Evan, who had to be on medication to make life near normal. Charley had moved to California but his life was always in turmoil. Jay received a phone call from a distressed Charley who had received the word that Evan had committed suicide jumping from high rocks. Charley, in his usual stupor, did not think that Evan had taken his own life and he pleaded with Jay to come to California and help him get to the truth. Jay didn’t know if Charley knew what he was talking about or not but he reluctantly went after promising Kathy that he would only stay a day or two and would then return home.
Upon Jay’s arrival he learned all he could about the entire situation, not knowing what the truth was. Jay turned to Detective Don Sherwood who was handling the case for the coroner’s office. After hearing the detective’s description of what occurred, Jay had his doubts that this was a suicide and determined that he would dig into things. The detective said it is possible that it was not suicide but all he could go by was the coroners report. The first clue was the fact that the home Evan had been assigned to for his rehab released him in only one day, certainly not enough time for any rehab. This only made Jay dig deeper. The deeper Jay got into the investigation the more he suspected that something else dreadful had caused Evan’s death, not a suicide.
When some police involved in Evan’s earlier life were found dead and with seemingly no open connection to his death, Jay started putting two and two together and coming up with several possibilities, none of which came to a suicide conclusion. He even convinced Detective Sherwood that something was wrong in this case. All during this time, Jay had kept calling his wife, Kathy, trying to explain why his day or two kept getting extended. Eventually Jay made a connection to a man that Charley had been associated with years earlier in his life. Russell Houvnanian was a very bad man. The deeper Jay and Detective Sherwood dug into the past history of Charley and Houvnanian the more they were convinced that there was a connection in the case of Evan and with some of the threats and some dead bodies that had been discovered, some also in the life of Charley and Houvnanian.
You will not get bored with this story with its twists. I enjoyed it thoroughly and highly recommend it. As mystery writers go, Andrew Gross has taken his place among the best.
Eyes Wide Open Written By Andrew Gross
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