John Verdon

"A strong follow-up to the author's wildly entertaining debut" —Washington Post

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 beginsdeciphering 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.