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Everything to Lose

A Novel

Audiobook
3 of 3 copies available
3 of 3 copies available

A determined mother becomes entangled in a murderous conspiracy to keep a twenty-year-old secret buried in this blistering thriller, set during the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, from Andrew Gross, the New York Times bestselling author of 15 Seconds and No Way Back

While driving along a suburban back road, Hilary Cantor, who's just lost her job and whose deadbeat husband has left her to care for her son who has Asperger's, witnesses a freakish accident when a deer suddenly darts in front of the car ahead of her. The driver careens down a hill and slams into a tree. Rushing to help, she discovers the car smoking, the driver dead—and a satchel on the floor stuffed with a half million dollars.

That money could prevent her family's ruin and keep her son in school. In an instant, this honest, achieving woman who has always done the responsible thing makes a decision that puts her in the center of a maelstrom of unforeseeable consequences and life-threatening recriminations. It isn't long before someone comes looking for the money, and as they get closer and closer to Hilary, she is pulled into a terrifying scheme involving a twenty-year-old murder, an old woman whose entire life has been washed out to sea by the storm, and a powerful figure determined to maintain the secret that can destroy him.

With everything to lose and putting everything she loves at risk, Hilary joins up with a dogged police official from Staten Island who has his own connections to the money and is dealing with his family's tragic struggles in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Together they must fight to bring down an enemy who will stop at nothing to keep buried what that money was meant to silence.

Everything to Lose is a propulsive thriller filled with tension and unexpected twists. Pitting an ordinary woman against powerful and desperate figures, this explosive and heartbreaking tale of suspense will appeal to readers of Harlan Coben, Lee Child, and David Baldacci.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      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.

    • Kirkus

      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.

      COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      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.)

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