Eyes Closed Tight
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
O’Clair is a former Detroit homicide investigator who now owns a motel in Pompano Beach, Florida in his retirement. He runs the place with his much younger girlfriend, Virginia, who’s a knockout and can fix anything. One morning, he’s cleaning up after the previous night’s partiers when he sees a lovely young woman stretched out asleep on a lounge chair. He shakes her gently. Then he touches her neck and feels for a pulse. There isn’t one. Her skin is cold, body starting to stiffen, definitely in the early stages of rigor.
When a second girl is murdered, O’Clair knows someone is trying to send him a message. The way the girls are killed reminds O’Clair of a case he investigated years earlier. Now convinced the Pompano murders are related, O’Clair returns to Detroit Police Homicide to review the murder file and try to figure out what he might have missed.
And when Virginia is kidnapped by the killer, the stakes grow exponentially higher.
The most powerful work to date by one of the most thrilling suspense novelists of our time, EYES CLOSED TIGHT is relentless, surprising, and deeply satisfying.
"While he will always face comparisons with his legendary father, Elmore Leonard, the author (Quiver; Trust Me; Voices of the Dead; All He Saw Was the Girl) continues to establish himself as one of today’s better mystery writers. Easily readable in a single sitting, Leonard’s fifth novel will appeal to fans of mystery, thrillers, and the Leonard name.”
– Library Journal
“Peter Leonard has that rare ability to totally draw the reader into his story within the space of a few sentences. He has demonstrated it before in his other books, but perhaps never so strongly as in EYES CLOSED TIGHT, his latest and best novel to date.”
– Bookreporter
“The book’s pages are crammed with trademark Leonardisms, from realistic dialogue full of rhythm and nuance to cool and colorful characters, quick to action…. But it’s the characters, their voices, the way they talk and go about their business (we also see the story unfold from the killer’s perspective) that propel the reader page after page. Leonard’s got a real knack for it, just like his dad.”
– Toledo Blade
“A fast read with enough red herrings and suspenseful twists to keep readers’ interest engaged until the surprising conclusion.”
– Fresh Fiction
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Leonard (Quiver) displays few of the literary gifts of his late father, Elmore Leonard, in this serial killer thriller whose protagonist has a plot device, rather than a human being, for a love interest. Ex-Detroit homicide cop O'Clair, who runs a motel in Pompano Beach, Fla., with his stunner of a girlfriend, Virginia, goes in search of a missing beach chair, only to find it occupied by a dead woman in her early 20s, later identified as escort Gloria McMillen. Whoever killed McMillen, who was asphyxiated and violated with a metal rod, also cut out her eyes. The reader soon learns that someone named Frank was scoping out O'Clair and Virginia before kidnapping McMillen and pulling out an X-Acto knife. The m.o. resonates disturbingly for O'Clair, who once worked a similar case. The man convicted for those earlier murders, however, was sentenced to life without parole. The story line, peopled by stereotypes, never deviates from the predictable.
