Come Out Tonight

You may have read newspaper reports of zombiish behavior in people who have taken the sleeping drug called Ambien. These people get up in the middle of the night to walk, eat, and drive cars in their sleep. The next day they sometimes find themselves in jail and have no memory of what they had done. And have you heard, as well, of the patients who wake up after years in a vegetative state - ten minutes after they’ve been given Ambien? COME OUT TONIGHT is a gripping psychological thriller inspired by these reports. Henry Jackman, a pharmacist’s assistant working in a run-down drugstore in New York City, wakes up one morning to find his girl friend unconscious on his living room rug. Someone has attacked her. He calls an ambulance, and manages to get her to the hospital alive but comatose. There she progresses from coma to vegetative state, never quite becoming conscious... until the day Henry gives her Somnolux, a new-generation sleep aid. Henry, an insomniac, has himself been taking Somnolux. He has been experiencing blackouts, something he doesn’t quite admit to, not even to himself. There is evidence he’s been doing some strange things in his sleep: women’s underwear turns up in his drawers; sexy women in his bed. Could Henry have attacked his girlfriend himself without any knowledge of the fact? Enter Donna Sirken, a no-nonsense, over-worked homicide detective who for seventeen years has clawed her way up the NYPD ranks to her current position as Detective Second Grade. “I’d have sworn until this very moment that criminals are not evil,” Donna tells us. “Sure, they’re violent, lazy, banal, or just plain bad. They want something for nothing, or their father beat them into a lifelong resentment against the world ….They grew up poor, abused, or just plain angry. Something set them on the road to crime, but Evil? C’mon.” A study of who we truly are, COME OUT TONIGHT is more than a whodunit. Profound, keenly observed and caustically funny, it will leave you thinking long after it is done.ReviewFrom Kirkus ReviewsRozanski's (Six Clicks Away, 2010, etc.) psychological thriller probes the dark side of insomnia drugs, including sleepwalking, nocturnal binge eating and blackouts.Henry Jackman is a pharmacist whose life takes on a new twist when he begins dating an attractive, brilliant medical researcher who willingly provides him with Somnolux, a new insomnia drug, to help him sleep.  The medication leaves him rested and alert each day, but he begins to realize he may be sleepwalking or experiencing blackouts along with other odd behaviors he continues to disregard.  He awakens one morning to find his girlfriend bludgeoned and near death in his apartment, with no signs of forced entry.  She survives in a vegetative state as Jackman's life begins to follow a bizarre pattern.  People keep appearing in his life who recognize him, but he knows nothing about them....He is pursued by Donna Sirken, a New York City homicide detective patterned after the classic trope of a hard-nosed, single-minded cop with a less than disciplined personal life. As Jackman continues to deny his symptoms and behaviors, she uncovers disturbing facts about him: women he is sleeping with, a jealous husband and a potential witness who ends up dead.  When Jackman gives his sleeping girlfriend Somnolux and she awakens, a series of fast-moving events accelerate the action to a startling climax.  Chapter narratives alternate between Jackman and Sirken, each replaying key events through the eyes of the other character and creating suspense....An absorbing thriller based on a real-life issue, with depth, suspense and intriguing psychological twists and turns.