Shut Your Eyes Tight

Shut Your Eyes Tight by John Verdon
Mystery/Thriller
Dave Gurney Series #2
2011 Books on Tape Audio
Reader: Scott Brick
Finished 1/7/13
Rating: 2.5/5 (Meh)


 
Publisher's Blurb:

A few months after the Mellery case pulled him out of retirement and nearly killed him, former NYPD homicide detective Dave Gurney receives a call about a case so bewildering that the thought of not looking into it seems unimaginable—even if his wife, Madeleine, would rather he do anything but.

The facts of what has occurred are horrible: a bride, newly wed to an eminent psychiatrist at his mountain estate, is found decapitated, her head apparently severed by a machete. Though police investigators believe that a Mexican gardener killed the young woman in a fit of jealous fury, the victim’s mother—a chilly high-society beauty—is having none of it. Drawn further into the mystery, Dave is buffeted by a series of revelations that transform the bizarre into the truly monstrous.

Underneath it all exists one of the darkest criminal schemes imaginable. As Gurney begins deciphering its grotesque outlines, his most cherished assumptions about himself are challenged, causing him to stare into an abyss so deep that it threatens to swallow not just him but Madeleine, too.

With Shut Your Eyes Tight, John Verdon delivers on the promise of his bestselling debut, Think of a Number, creating a portrait of evil let loose across generations that is as rife with moments of touching humanity as it is with spellbinding images of perversity.


I was very impressed with Verdon's debut thriller, Think of a Number, (which I read in the summer of 2011), so when I came across the audio for this sequel, I jumped right on it. Unfortunately, it wasn't as compelling as the first book, and I found it difficult to maintain an interest in the characters and the mystery. So much so that it wound up taking me over a month to complete. However, since I loved the first book, I've decided to give Verdon another chance. Rather than listening to the audio version of Let the Devil Sleep, I plan to read it in the print format. My friend Joy gave this third book a positive review (which you can read here) and since she and I have very similar reading tastes, I'm willing to try one more in this series.