Eyes Wide Open
Andrew Gross

William Morrow
July 2011 /ISBN 978-0061655968
Psychological Thriller
Amazon

Reviewed by Barbara Buhrer

Dr Jay Erlich receives a call from his older brother, Charlie, in California, stating that Charlie's son, Evan, had mysteriously died. He had been found at the bottom of a cliff at Morro Bay. Evan had been diagnosed as bipolar as had Charlie. Jay flies to California to help his grieving brother. There he finds the police have declared Evan's death a suicide. In trying to find the circumstances about Evan's death, Jay gets no help from the police or the mental hospital where Evan was a patient. He is beginning to question whether this was a suicide or a murder. He finds links to a Manson-type group that belonged to a commune in which Charlie had lived in his previous hippie days. This quest puts Jay's life also in jeopardy until he can fathom the truth.

This psychological thriller is a study of the evil wrought by man. It is fast-paced, quick read with believable characters. The story continues at a relentless pace until the chilling ending. Gross writes with an understanding of the characters in this novel, since his own nephew had died in the same situation as Evan and the events portrayed in this book were similar to those experienced by his family.