Product Description

A breathtaking novel of suspense from the co-author of five No 1 James Patterson bestsellers including Judge and Jury and Lifeguard, and the hit thrillers The Blue Zone and The Dark Tide A revenge killing. A dead public attorney. And a family caught in the cross-fire. For local detective Ty Hauck, life is good. A waterfront house, a new girlfriend and, after uncovering a Wall Street scandal, he's even a local hero. But then a day trip with his daughter turns into a bloodbath. Inner-city violence seems to have invaded his quiet Greenwich suburn. Or does someone just want it to appear that way? If so, it's someone powerful enough to kill without fear of reprisal. Ty suspects things go deeper, maybe all the way to Washington and the Middle East. And everyone, from the FBI to his own family, wants him to stop looking. But with his estranged brother, Warren, in danger, Ty can't turn away. He ignores the warnings...with devastating and explosive consequences.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28155 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

From the Author
Lieutenant Ty Hauck has had a difficult life in many ways but seemed to find happiness at the end of The Dark Tide. Why did you decide to make things tough again for him in Don’t Look Twice?
This is a question that has sent me to stare cravenly into the mirror to find what wounds in me have made personal happiness so elusive for my hero, Hauck. And while I’m sure there is a deep personal scar buried in my past - not to mention why betrayal seems to be such a pervasive element in my stories - I’m afraid to say it's probably nothing deeper than my sense that "happiness" is not particularly dramatic, and not the best plot device when it comes to thrillers. Conflict is. What could be less dramatic that your hero languishing on the boat with his beloved and sharing popsicles at a summer fair? Or having cuddly, happily married sex - except to set up some evil to come? And isn't it the plight of all great heroes to strive tirelessly for the fate of others, yet have the one thing they desire most perpetually elude them?

Since you wrote the book, US personnel in foreign reconstruction are suspected to have defrauded the taxpayer of tens of billions. Is this something you anticipated when the private contractors first moved into Iraq?
Well, no, I’m not prescient. But my books always seem to start with something small and local - a drive-by shooting, a hit and run - then expand to something much wider and a lot more sinister. Like a global hedge fund fraud or a juicy Iraq war scandal. What i do know is, though, at the nexus where cronyism and profiteering meet, lies one helluva good conspiracy to use in your story.

Is it fair to say you are preoccupied by the idea of respectability having a dark underbelly and upstanding members of the community being white collar criminals (or worse)?
Yeah, don't know what it is. I guess, even in business life, I’ve always seen myself as an agent for change, always felt myself on the outside looking in at what I perceived was the vested establishment. This is now, no doubt, how i tear them down. Years back, I was a member of business groups of young corporate presidents, and it seemed the ones who were most successful, those who were almost untouchable in their arc and admiration, were always the ones who were exposed and taken down by scandal. So this must be my way of coming to terms that when in business, i never quite made the big bucks!!!!

So what was your reaction to the news of extensive domestic fraud exposed by the 2008 downturn, like Allen Stanford and Bernard Madoff?
Well, my books take place in and around Greenwich, Connecticut, outside of New York City, and while they're hardly financial tales, they are littered with hedge fund managers and master-of-the-world types, larger than life. Who knew i was so ahead of the curve as to where the real villains resided? Actually, my family got madoff-ed, meaning they were invested with him, so the thought is a little sad. But two years ago, the dark tide did pose the very madoff-like question, what happens when you control billions of "the wrong people's" money - and then you lose every cent! But like I said, if I was so ahead of the curve, my own investment portfolio would look a lot rosier than it does.

“Behind every fortune, there is a crime” (Balzac) – is this an unavoidable truth?
My mantra. This is the stuff great thrillers - my kind of thrillers - that deal with families and success and wealth - are made of. Every one of my books has pierced through the patina of wealth and seeming success, to a fraud or concealment of truth that lies at the heart of their character. It's the jet fuel for my plots.

The plot leads Ty from ruthless street gangs to high-rolling casinos – how did you research these two very different areas?
I have to admit i did not lurk clandestine on the streets of Newark (or Bridgeport) to experience the smell and feel of the streets. The gangs in my book, it's clearly a red herring, clearly something you pass through on the way to something more at stake. The casino thing has always interested me. And casinos are huge in Connecticut, where i set my books. So I felt I had to include them. The idea of a respectable attorney brought down by a gambling vice intrigued me, but not enough to make it the end destination of the book. I have to admit, the gaming "scam" that they purportedly engage in, came off Google news somewhere. Actually happened. Truth is, I only research my books deep enough to give it the layer of believability to buy into what is happening in the plot. I'd say I’m much more a believer in credibility than truth.

We’ll finish with how you started: a novel called Hydra, which got you the attention of James Patterson. Could you tell us what that book was about and what happened to it?
It's still an unpublished disc in the back of my drawer. (boo-hoo.) It was a political conspiracy novel about a right wing takeover of the united states, through a radical wing of the NRA (the national rifle association). Now, if i knew it would end up being a non-fiction story.... Well, i would have seen my name in print a whole lot sooner (there was a joke there!). I think it's a great story, but the fact is, i have borrowed against it strategically over the years, so one day, if readers ever get to see it, they will probably recognize a scene or character or two.

About the Author
Before turning to full-time writing, Andrew Gross was an executive in the sportswear business. Andrew has co-authored 5 novels with James Patterson, all of them reaching Number One in the NY Times Bestseller list. His first novel 'The Blue Zone' was an instant UK bestseller. He currently lives in New York with his wife, Lynn and has three children.

Customer Reviews

Good, but nothing more
The previous Ty Hauck book from Andrew Gross left a lot of promise for the follow up, but sadly, it didn't deliver.

As a previous review already stated, you can expect exactly when the twists are going to come. And when they do, they're not very shocking. The story opens with a real bang, setting up for what should be a great story. But the plot rapidly slows down, and the rest of the action is limited and a bit predictable. The development of Ty Hauck through the book was good, it was realistic and enjoyable. But there is something lacking in the rest of the story that stops it being a great read. Most of the secondary characters are paper thin, and there are almost too many to keep track of. The main motive come the end, isn't all that clear either.

I think in some ways Mr. Gross was trying too hard, throwing too much in at once. But it was still a pretty solid read, great if you've got a few hours to kill on a plane or in the sun.

A Patterson-Style Series of Plot Reversals Occurring a Bit Too Predictably and Safely

Don't Look Twice is an average beach read, if you live somewhere that the beach is warm enough for the purpose. Unpredictability can become predictable, and that's what happens to this book. You keep expecting the next reversal of fortune, and it's not that hard to see most of them coming. The book's main redeeming feature is that the character development of Ty Hauck is reasonably well done. The book's main weakness is that while there are lots of threats of death and destruction, those threats are mostly hollow. As a result, the story lacks the kind of tension that following truly threatened characters provides in terms of making a book exciting, compelling, and hard to put down.

Andrew Gross shows that he's a skilled plotter in this book. With that much talent for keeping lots of balls in the air, it's a shame that he isn't inclined to develop his plot in ways that keep threat seeming more real than here. I suspect that he will become a better writer. The raw material is there . . . the ear for what makes a book fun to read isn't quite developed yet.

The book has a wonderful beginning. There's a tremendous bang that changes the lives of the people involved. But the story drifts into a much lower gear from there as Ty Hauck looks for the killers in a drive-by shooting and what their motives were.

If you happen to live in Greenwich, Connecticut and don't mind allusions to corruption, you may actually like this book better than I did and rate it four stars. I only drive through Greenwich so the local color didn't add that much to the story for me. Now, if a hedge fund manager had been a key player . . . that could have been interesting!

Poor
Cliched rubbish. The characters are predictable as is the story line.
You can begin reading the first few lines of one of the many short chapters and instantly know where it is going and at times know exactly how it will be worded. A very unimaginative plot.However if you are looking for a simple beach read this will suffice!