Everything to Lose
By Andrew Gross 
(Morrow)

Who hasn’t thought that a bag of money could solve a lot of problems? But it’s also prudent to remember that money can be the root of evil, as the adage goes.

Hilary Blum knows that money can’t really buy happiness but it could buy her some peace of mind. She’s drowning in debt, taking care of her 7-year-old autistic son, Brandon, who is finally thriving at his progressive, but pricey, private school. She doesn’t receive any help from her ex-husband, who prefers to concentrate on his second, wealthy wife. Oh, and she has just been downsized from her marketing job.

On a rural road in Westchester County, New York, she rushes to help a driver whose car has just hit a tree. The man is dead but next to him is a satchel filled with half a million dollars. That much money could change her life ― or be the beginning of her problems. That much money isn’t just pocket change, and it’s doubtful it belonged to the deceased man, a retired a Metropolitan Transit Authority worker who lived modestly. Hilary knows she shouldn’t keep the money, she knows there may be consequences, but she also knows that her son’s well-being is at stake.

Set against the backdrop of a neighborhood rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, “Everything to Lose” moves at a brisk pace as Hilary teams up with the dead man’s son, a Staten Island cop, to find out why his father had so much cash on him and who is desperate to reclaim that money as well as incriminating papers packed in the bag.

Gross makes readers want to root for Hilary, whose is motivated not by greed but only by the well-being of her son.

Best-selling author Andrew Gross has fashioned a realistically creepy plot that delivers myriad logical and exciting twists. (MCT)