Hilary Blum, mother of a child with Asperger's, is struggling to make ends meet. Her ex-husband stopped paying support, and her son's private school costs more than she can handle alone. The loss of her job is the final straw, and Hilary is desperate. Gross makes it easy to follow Hilary's emotions as she tries to find a solution. Then, as in all fiction, a solution presents itself. She witnesses a fatal accident and finds a satchel filled with money. The driver is dead, and she is there alone. As another driver comes towards the wreck, she yells for help and makes the only decision she feels she can make. The money will save her son, and no one will know she was there. She takes the money and leaves before the second driver gets a good look at her.
Gross makes it easy to accept her choice as inevitable and follow her through the horror that follows. The money was not "clean," and more deaths follow. The story takes place in New York after Hurricane Sandy, and Gross describes the devastation as he takes Hilary through one frightening event after another. She teams up with a policeman with secrets of his own to hide, and the reader is swept along with them.
I love books that make me wonder where the line is when morality coincides with basic needs. Thank you Andrew Gross, for another week of wondering what I would have done in a similar situation.
- Beverly
Publisher - William Morrow
Date of Publication - April 22, 2014