On Friday, Nick Grant is an ordinary guy, with a good job, a wife he loves, and an adorable eight-year-old son. On Saturday, his wife is dead, his son is in critical condition, and there is an unidentified body in the basement. Wracked with guilt and torment, he retreats to a rental house he owns in “The Bottoms,†a crime-ridden slum in Columbus, Ohio, where he falls into a life of drugs and alcohol. A chance encounter with a young woman who shares her deadly secret sucks Nick Grant into a vortex of criminal activity where he becomes an unwitting player in a dangerous game of chance in a battle between the underworld and law enforcement at the highest levels. What follows is an intricate tale of greed, corruption, deception, and murder.
The Window Washer starts like a house afire, literally, and maintains its momentum right down to the final sentence. Not only does Eric Rill tell a compelling action tale that could be ripped from today’s headlines, but he also writes with great insight and does not look the other way when one of his characters must cope with unendurable grief if he is to survive. And that grief does not stop the action, but rather acts as a catalyst for it. Even after years of editing, I couldn’t stop reading The Window Washer until I had read it all the way through. Eric Rill’s fans will not be disappointed by this fast-paced, absorbing story. — Sharon Nettles, editor