Everything to Lose

March 24, 2014
Down-on-her-luck 36-year-old Hilary Blum, the heroine of this enjoyable thriller from bestseller Gross (No Way Back), has run out of options. She's lost her job at a small marketing firm, is overwhelmed with debt, and is getting no financial help from her deadbeat ex-husband, the father of her seven-year-old autistic son, Brandon. Everything changes when, on a backcountry road between Westchester County, N.Y., and Greenwich, Conn., she sees the car ahead of her swerve to avoid a deer and roll down a steep embankment. Hilary stops her car and rushes down the slope. In the wreck she finds not only the male driver dead but also a leather satchel containing $500,000 in neat bundles of crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. In a moment of sheer desperation--and against her better judgment--Hilary swipes the cash. After beginning to pay off her debts and getting her life back on track, she discovers that this money didn't belong to the dead man himself, a Metropolitan Transit Authority worker, but rather a murderous third party who will stop at nothing to retrieve what Hilary has taken. Fearing for the safety of herself and Brandon, Hilary races against the clock to uncover the source of the illicit bounty. Readers will cheer her every step of the way to the heart-stopping climax. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House.

April 15, 2014
Best-selling author Gross' (No Way Back, 2013, etc.) latest is a hard-driving caper that chronicles the trials of a suburban divorcee seduced by temptation. Joseph Kelty had $500,000 in his car, but he was texting while driving; he lost control, crashed and died. First at the scene is Hilary Cantor, recently downsized, with a crippling mortgage and an ex-husband behind on alimony and child support. Her son, Brandon--"This is what God gave me to protect, to keep safe"--has Asperger's syndrome, and he attends a specialized school with break-the-bank tuition. Gross does yeoman work in setup, circumstance and motivation--Kelty was a retired transit worker with a pristine past and Hilary is all wavering conscience, focused on need rather than consequences. Hilary throws the money into the woods and later returns to the scene to recover it--but that $500,000 is dirty money, and there are bad guys who will kill to get it. First to die is an innocent pharmacist who was a witness to the crash. Hilary and Brandon are targeted next. The tense, fast-moving narrative takes in Superstorm Sandy, Ukrainian mobsters, a knee-capping political fixer and a psychopathic thrill-killer. Hilary traces the money to storm-ravaged Staten Island and seeks help from Kelty's police-officer son, Patrick, thinking "[m]aybe I just wanted a partner in this"--but Patrick's caught in his own financial trap. Hilary and Patrick are well-defined, sympathetic characters, and assorted bad guys are thoroughly believable. Gross sustains momentum while flipping back and forth in time and point of view. Segments following the psychopath are confusing, however, and then indeterminate; only late in the book do they weave into the main narrative. The conclusion is unsentimental though not quite satisfying. A tightly wound, realistic thriller.

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Starred review from May 1, 2014
The old myth of gold hidden in a cave, guarded by a troll and stumbled upon by a hero who may or may not be pure of heart, has powerful resonance among storytellers. Think of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or, more recently, Scott Smith's A Simple Plan (1993) or Aaron Elkins' Loot (1999), or this fine thriller. Heroine Hilary Blum finds a stack of cash, but it isn't in a crashed airplane or under a tarp. It's on the seat next to a man killed when his car went over a cliff. No one's purer than Hilary, or more deserving. Her ex-hubby has weaseled out of paying support for their disabled son, and she's lost her job. She takes the money. The trolls appear. Things quicklyand nastilyspin out of control as Gross skillfully keeps his plot moving forward through scenes of emotional richness, then jittery suspense. The characters are pushed by choices they make, not just the demands of the plot. So the horrific ending, when the wrong people die, hurts as much as it heals.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)