Eyes Wide Open
by Andrew Gross
Review: When Jay Erlich learns that his 21-year-old nephew Evan has died in California, he flies from his home in New York to be with his brother and sister-in-law, only to discover that the circumstances surrounding Evan's death are far from clear in Eyes Wide Open, a stand-alone novel of suspense by Andrew Gross.
As a teen, Evan Erlich was diagnosed as bipolar, just like his father, Charlie. Though both Charlie and his younger brother Jay were intellectually brilliant, Jay led the quiet life of a student, eventually graduating from medical school and becoming a successful surgeon, while his older brother Charlie led the wild life of a stoned musician. It wasn't until Charlie got caught up in a cult that committed a string of murders that he finally decided to straighten out his life, meeting his future wife Gabby at a recovery clinic. Settling down in a small California coastal town with their son Evan, they hoped to lead a quiet life. But as a child, Evan was troubled, getting into scrapes at school, which eventually turned into brushes with the law. Ordered for treatment at a clinic, he was there only a few days before being released. Refusing to return home, he was later found dead at the base of a cliff, from which he either fell, or more probably, jumped. Jay, always a bit distant emotionally from his brother and his family, but now in California to support them, comes to realize there may be more to his nephew's death than he was led to believe.
Eyes Wide Open is a strongly written, deftly plotted novel of suspense about the lives of an extended family and the misfortune that brings them together. But it is also about secrets and lies, deceptions and truths, fantasy and reality. Gross used a tragedy in his own family, the death of his nephew Alex Jeffrey Gross, as an inspiration for this novel. But even without knowing this, there's an underlying sense that he knows these characters all too well, that it is a personal story, fictional to be sure, but one from the heart.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Eyes Wide Open.
Acknowledgment: Meryl L. Moss Media Relations provided a copy of Eyes Wide Open for this review.
Review Copyright © 2011 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
The Dark Tide
William Morrow (Hardcover), March 2008
ISBN-13: 9780061143427; ISBN-10: 0061143421
Location(s) referenced in Eyes Wide Open: California
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Eyes Wide Open by Andrew Gross
Publisher: William Morrow
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-06-165596-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-165596-1
Publication Date: June 2011
List Price: $25.99
Synopsis (from the publisher): Jay Erlich's nephew has been found at the bottom of a cliff at Morrow Bay. It's all just a tragic suicide, until secrets from the past begin to rear up again. Did a notorious killer, jailed for many decades, have his hand in this?
Years ago, Jay Erlich's older brother, Charlie, a wayward child of the sixties, set out for California, where he fell under the sway of a charismatic but deeply disturbed cultlike figure. Tragedy ensued and lives were destroyed, but as the decades passed, Charlie married and raised a family and lived a quiet, secluded life under the radar. Yet the demons that nearly destroyed him never completely disappeared.
When Jay heads out west to help his grieving brother, he is pulled back into Charlie's past—and begins to suspect that his nephew's suicide may not have been that at all. With eyes wide open, Jay puts his own life at risk to uncover the truth, a quest that goes beyond the edge of madness and a family haunted by a secret past … and into the depths of evil.