Excerpt of Don't Close Your Eyes by Lawrence Kelter

Don't Close Your Eyes" begins with a whimper and a bang--
two seemingly
unrelated deaths. The first is a teenage girl whose asthma
suffocates
her while sleeping. The second is a man shot on the tram
that connects
Roosevelt Island to Manhattan. Lying next to the man is the
real
puzzle: a woman who might appear to have died of natural
causes if not
for the handwritten note stuffed in her mouth that simply
reads "Look
back."

Murder mystery thrillers are often driven by tough, fast-
talking,
streetwise detectives with a sad story about their past and
a penchant
for nabbing perps. The cop on the case in "Don't Close Your
Eyes" is
all these things and more. Meet Stephanie Chalice. She's a
smart,
beautiful, 28-year-old NYPD homicide detective whose
acerbic repartee
is like an arsenal of nuclear missiles--it convinces her
male
colleagues that she means business.

Behind all the bluster, though, is a young woman with
fierce passions
who shows the same tremendous dedication to her ill mother
as she does
her job. Chalice is an excellent detective, but it comes at
a cost. She
suffers recurring nightmares, and obsesses that the
diabetes that
killed her father and weakens her mother will one day come
for her.

When a second woman is found dead with a rag in her mouth
and another
cryptic note nearby, Chalice realizes a serial killer stalks
Manhattan's Upper East Side. Her detective work combines
intelligence,
persistence, a skilled partner, and well-connected friends.
Secret
allies also work on her behalf to thwart dangers that lie
just beyond
her periphery. As she follows a trail of clues and corpses
to the
murderer, she also pursues her own demons, uncovering
startling truths
about who she really is.