I've heard good things about Brad Parks' writing over the past couple of years, and I kept telling myself to pick up one of his books and give him a try. Of course, as almost always happens, other books came across my radar and I never did get around to it. Then his latest standalone thriller, Closer Than You Know, became available for review, and I'm so glad I snapped it up.

Melanie Barrick grew up one step away from disaster. She spent her early years in foster care and while some of her homes were decent, others were close to unbearable, and it often seemed like no one cared enough to investigate the conditions under which she was forced to live.

As an adult, Melanie has worked hard to escape her troubled past. She has a good job, a husband she can't get enough of, and a cute, healthy baby boy. True, a feeling of impending doom is never far away, but Melanie does her best to ignore it. She's built a great life for herself, and surely, nothing can go wrong now.

As you've probably guessed, something does go terribly wrong for Melanie and her family. She arrives to pick her son up from daycare one evening, only to be told that child protective services has removed him from her care and no matter how many questions she asks, no one will give her any further information. She's instructed to wait for the police to speak to her and reluctantly, she goes home to wait.

Soon after arriving home, Melanie is arrested. It seems a large amount of cocaine was found in her home, and all fingers point to Melanie as the person who secreted it there. She is hauled off to jail, but she doesn't have the money for a fancy criminal lawyer to help her through this ordeal, so one is appointed to her.

As days go by, Melanie becomes ever more desperate to learn the truth, not only to save herself, but to reclaim her son as well. The thought of him alone and defenseless in the system breaks her heart, but she knows she has to clear her name before she can hope to be reunited with him. Slowly, and with the help of a few unexpected allies, she begins the arduous process of unraveling the web of secrets and lies that's been woven around her.

The story alternates between Melanie's point of view and that of Assistant Prosecutor Amy Kaye, the attorney responsible for trying Melanie in court. She's a dedicated, hard-working woman, not all that different from countless other tough female lawyers who populate the pages of crime fiction. She believes in the justice system, but Melanie's case isn't her highest priority. Instead, she's focused on a cold case involving a serial rapist who has been active for many years. Her superiors are eager for her to turn her back on the rape case in favour of focusing her attention on Melanie - whom the press have nicknamed Coke Mom - but Amy Kaye is reluctant to turn her back on the countless victims who have been affected by the rapist. She has a desperate need to bring the perpetrator to justice, even if it costs her everything she has fought so hard to achieve.

Mr. Parks is a true master of suspense. The plotting isn't hugely original, but this didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the story. I did see a number of the supposed twists coming, but there were still quite a few things that took me by surprise, and I was completely invested in the story from beginning to end.

The characters are well-drawn, if a bit clichéd. You've encountered people like them in other books you've read, but, rather than feeling old and tired, they have a very welcome sense of familiarity here and I didn't get overly caught up in struggling to understand their motivations. I could just allow myself to be swept up in the story. Sometimes, especially when life is busy and stressful, that's just what one needs.

If you're a fan of fast-paced thrillers, Closer Than You Know will be right up your alley. It starts off with a bang and doesn't ease up until the very end of the story; it's a bit of a wild ride, but one I'm glad I took. Mr. Parks has earned a place on my list of comfort read authors and I definitely plan to check out his back list. After all, one can't have enough deftly-plotted, action-packed mysteries.

Buy it at: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/iBooks/Kobo

Unfortunately (and I almost never do this), so far this is a DNF for me. I put it aside for now and will give continuing it a shot in a few weeks. However, with what I've read so far,I just couldn't keep reading. The writing style felt so amateurish. The plot seemed super contrived (if drugs were found in the house, why was only Melanie arrested? Wouldn't her husband be arrested as well?). I couldn't give it much benefit of the doubt with that combined with the writing style. Sorry. :(

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this book for honest review.

What fun I had with this book! I was hooked from the first page. When we meet Melanie she is a happily married working mom, albeit a bit stressed trying to pay the bills. Her bright spot in her life is her son and her husband. Growing up, Melanie had very few bright spots as she was in Foster Care “the system” for most of her childhood. Imagine coming back for your son at his daycare only to find he’s no longer there. He has been taken by the same system that Melanie knows only too well. As if this wasn’t bad enough she is now before the courts for charges of drug trafficking and wanting to sell her baby on the black market. Melanie is feeling very lost and can’t comprehend what has happened and how they think she could have done this. Meanwhile we meet Amy, prosecution lawyer for the county who is working a cold case that has suddenly become warm again. How could these two very different women have anything in common? With twists and turns and an author who has obviously done a fair amount of research on children who are removed from their families only to grow up in the system, this book satisfies until the end. Closer than you know was fairly easy for me to figure out “who done it”, but the excellent writing style and detailed information made this a book you wanted to savour.

This is a challenging book to review. Not because it was a bad book. It was a good book with an interesting premise, a mystery that keeps the reader guessing, and a way in which it is all tied together well in the end. However, this particular reviewer found it was hard to read. The subject matter made it particularly difficult. The pain that the main character went through, both in being in the social service world as a child, and as being thrown unwittingly back into that world, into jail, and into a hellish life that she could not control. I love to read, but this book took a couple of weeks to complete. It went faster for the last 1/3 of the book, as this reader thought she had it all figured out and then learned multiple times that she had not had a clue. What would you do if you went to pick up your baby at the babysitter, to learn that social service had custody of the client and that the sitter knew "all about you" and you were to leave immediately or the police would be called? What would you do if you went to social service and were told to come back in the morning? What would you do if you were taken away for a crime you swore you did not commit? If those questions intrigue you, then this book is for you. Just be prepared for a lot of thought and a lot of emotion.

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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When you read a book about a dog -- from Marley & Me to Where the Red Fern Grows -- you've got a pretty good idea what's going to happen near the end. Same goes for a Nora Ephron movie. Or a Horror flick. But you still read or watch them, and you cry, or laugh and "awww", or jump in your seat when you're supposed to. Even on repeat reads/viewings. But when done right, those things just work. Similarly, think of a roller coaster -- you may stand outside the fence watching the thing go around the track while standing in line (some lines give you plenty of opportunity to study), and armed with that study, as well as the your own eyes, you know that track is going to drop from in front of you in a couple of seconds -- or the coaster is about to hit the loop -- that doesn't stop your stomach from lurching when it does.

Why do I bother with that? It's a thought that kept running through the back of my mind while reading Closer Than You Know. By the time I hit the 10% mark, if you'd made me write down what I expected to happen -- the reveals, the twists, the story beats, etc. -- I'd have gotten an A. I'm not saying I'm smarter than the average bear or anything, anyone who's read/watched a handful of thrillers would've been able to, too. And it worked. It absolutely worked. How Parks pulls it off, I do not know, but he does. He's just that good.

And all the stuff that I didn't guess? Oh, man, it was just so sweet when Parks delivered it, there were a couple of scenes that just left me stunned. And, I should rush to note, the way Parks made a couple of reveals that I'd seen coming from the start were so well done, it was like I hadn't called the shot.

In his previous stand-alone, Parks said that he wanted to write about the thing that scares him the most -- his children being kidnapped. Closer Than You Know taps into a very similar fear -- Child Protective Services taking your child from you, leaving you to the mercies of the machine where you're presumed guilty. This time instead of "the bad guys," faceless criminals, taking someone's kids, this time it's the forces of justice, of law and order, taking the child -- they're celebrated for it, they're doing it "for the best interests of the child."

What's worse is that no one will tell Melanie Barrick why her infant son had been taken from his daycare. Melanie spent most of her childhood in the Foster Child system, and most of that time in the worse situations that system has to offer. This isn't the stuff of nightmares for Melanie, mostly because I don't think she has enough imagination for her subconscious to cook this up. And then she's arrested for possession of cocaine and paraphernalia suggesting distribution -- a felony that will guarantee she's about to lose her little Alex for good.

Melanie is a "good person" -- she's one of the success stories that we don't see as often as we'd like from the Foster Child system. She worked to put herself through college; has a great, supportive husband; a lousy job (but with benefits) -- but one that will help her family get somewhere; and is a devoted, doting, loving mother. The kind of person we all want to think we're surrounded by, but fear we probably aren't.

From this point on, it's a cyclone for despair as every part of her life -- her job, her husband, her brother, her friends, her finances, her sense of privacy and security -- is affected, is under siege during this ordeal. Can Melanie maintain her hope, maintain her innocence, maintain her conviction that she'll hold her baby boy again?

In charge of prosecuting "Coke Mom" (the press is always so quick with these nicknames), is Amy Kaye. Amy Kaye could easily be the protagonist in any legal thriller, she's just the kind of character you want to read in that kind of thing. She's smart, dedicated and driven -- at the moment, she's primarily concerned with a serial rape investigation that she's doing pretty much on her own. Amy starts to make progress for the first time in years when she's put on this prosecution (largely for political reasons) -- which she's more than willing to do, but she hates to take away time and attention from the rape investigation. What really makes this difficult for Kaye is that Melanie is one of the most recent victims in this investigation.

So basically, things are not going well for these two women. There are occasional moments where there is hope, where there is a hint of humor, or life for them and it's just enough to get you to let your guard down before the gears turn again and life gets bad. Melanie seems to be a living embodiment of Murphy's Law -- things just never go her way in this book. As she notes herself, addicts talk about hitting rock bottom -- she isn't like them, she keeps finding new bottoms. It's during this part of the book, where the gears keep grinding away, where the Justice System seems most like a machine, and least like a method for determining (not presupposing) guilt, that things will really get to you. That stomach lurching I mentioned earlier? That image came from somewhere. It feels so real, it feels like this is something that actually happened to someone that Parks spent hours interviewing. I don't know how you read these parts of the book and not get demoralized -- but unable to put the book down, because you just have to, have to know what happens next.

As I've said before, I've been a Brad Parks fan since the first time I read his debut novel -- and I miss Carter Ross, the star of his series. The bad thing for me reading Say Nothing and Closer Than You Know is that these are so good, he's going to spend years doing books like this and I don't know if he'll be able to get back to Carter. On the other hand, I can't complain really if he's putting out reading that's this compelling. Yeah, I said the book was largely predictable -- and you'll likely find it the same. But you will be wrong about some things and you won't know how he'll show you that you're right. Think of a NASCAR race -- we all know that it's basically a series of guys going fast and turning left -- but it's how they go fast and turn left that makes all the difference. Parks delivers the goods -- the word riveting doesn't do this book justice. It's compelling, riveting, gripping, exciting, and will make you rethink so much of what you may believe of the Criminal Justice and Child Protective systems. You will laugh, you will be stunned (in good and bad ways), you will give up hope for this poor mother.

And you will hate when the book ends -- as much as you breathe a sigh of relief as you know you have some degree of closure.


Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Dutton Books via NetGalley in exchange for this post -- thanks to both for this.

Damn, Brad Parks can write! I never wanted this book to end. This thriller starts off with a bang. Melanie Barrick goes to pick up her baby, Alex, from childcare only to discover he’s been removed by social services and nobody will tell her why. Through her own sleuthing she finds out, the police discovered large amounts of cocaine in her house, making her look like a drug dealer. She’s thrown in jail and because neither she or her husband, Ben, have much money, she’s assigned an attorney.

Then other things she believed turn out to be false. So much so, that’s she’s bewildered and has to find out what’s fiction and what’s not.

I guarantee any thriller aficionado will absolutely love this book. It has everything a good one needs – deftly woven plot lines, suspicion shed on multiple characters, excellent writing and character development. And I can’t wait to read another one of Parks’ books.

With thanks to Brad Parks and his publisher, Dutton Books, for the advanced reader copy, obtained via Net Galley.

Closer than you KNow is a fast paced thriller, centered around Melanie Barrick. Sh overcame a childhood in foster care and was happily married with an infant son. As she picks up her son from an in-home day care, she is told he was removed by Social Services. Soon she discovers her house was searched and trashed by the police. What unfolds is baffling, and inexplicable. She has no idea where the cocaine found in the nursery came from. How her cell phone ended up in a box full of scales and other drug paraphenallia. Soon, her husband appears to have left, and she's awaiting trial.

Meanwhile, the assistant prosecutor for the county, Amy, is connecting the dots on a series of rape cases that no one had realized were connected. And the woman recently charged with drug possession and trafficking was one of those victims.

The puzzle pieces slowly come together and come into focus, only to scatter and reform.

Closer than you know is a true page turner. Well written, fast paced, and intriguing - it's the sort of thriller I truly enjoy. Recommended for fans for David Baldacci, Tess Geritsen, and psychological fiction.

See review at link below