Closer Than You Know

October 1, 2017

A new mother experiences a nightmare in Parks's (Say Nothing) latest thriller. Melanie Barrick arrives in the evening to pick up her infant son Alex from day care only to learn that Social Services had been there earlier and taken him. Unable to get answers from the agency directly, as the office is closed, Melanie arrives home in a panic to discover that the sheriff's deputies, acting on an anonymous tip, have raided her house and found enough cocaine to keep Melanie in prison for years. She has no idea what's going on, and of course, nobody believes in her innocence. Assigned to prosecute Melanie's case, Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Amy Kaye is also obsessed with cracking a cold case involving a serial rapist. While this secondary story line is interesting, it is Melanie's fate to recover everything she loves; how she fights her way back makes this novel truly special. VERDICT Another winning tale of domestic suspense from the Shamus- and Nero Award-winning author Parks, who knows how to get readers to empathize emotionally with his characters while amping up the tension and suspense from the first page.--Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2018
A Virginia mom dutifully treading the path toward middle-class respectability is thrown down the rabbit hole when she's accused of drug dealing and worse.Despite having been taken from an abusive father and grown up in a series of group homes and foster homes, Melanie Barrick seems to have landed on her feet. While she works as a dispatcher at Diamond Trucking, her husband, Ben, studies history at James Madison University, where his mentor is grooming him for a tenure-track job, and her 3-month-old son, Alex, is taking baby steps toward becoming his own person. The wrecking ball is lowered on Melanie's life when she's late picking up Alex at day care and learns that Social Services has already spirited him away after hearing that the Augusta County Sheriff's Office has found nearly half a kilo of cocaine hidden in the boy's nursery together with all the evidence they need to convict Melanie of intent to sell. In short order, Melanie is arrested for assaulting a police officer, hauled off to jail, and threatened with five years in prison. Her Social Services hearing is over before it begins, and the preliminary hearing on the criminal charges goes no better. Things couldn't possibly get any worse--unless she finds out that Ben has been lying to her for months about a very important subject and she's charged with the murder of a man she's only seen once before. Deputy commonwealth attorney Amy Kaye, pulled off the case of a serial rapist to slam the prison door on the Coke Mom so that her incompetent, politically minded boss, Aaron Dansby, can burnish his resume and run for higher office, smells a rat, but her attempts to undermine the case against Melanie are as unavailing as her attempts to link the Coke Mom to the Whispering Rapist.Parks (Say Nothing, 2017, etc.) dishes out another irresistible descent into hell for a heroine who regards her harrowing plight with a sobering verdict: "It was like hitting a new bottom every day."

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January 8, 2018
Set in Virginia, this exciting if flawed domestic thriller from Parks (Say Nothing) centers on working mother Melanie Barrick, whose life is turned upside down after the police find a half-kilo of cocaine in her home and social services takes her three-month-old son, Alex, away from her and her husband. Melanie, who has been through a lot in her life—stints in foster care as a child and, most recently, a rape—must somehow prove her innocence or lose Alex and her freedom. As chief deputy commonwealth’s attorney Amy Kaye builds a seemingly airtight case against Melanie, she also struggles to identify a serial rapist who has been victimizing women in the area for decades. Predictably, the two story lines connect. Although Parks excels at keeping the pages turning with brisk pacing, relentlessly high tension, and a knotty narrative, the story—particularly the ending—comes off as too contrived. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency.

January 1, 2018
Parks builds his thriller on a foundation of near-implausibilities. Melanie Barrick is a rape victim impregnated by the rapist. She gives birth to the rapist's child. Keeps him. Adores him. Melanie's husband is similarly devoted to the child. Readers who can't accept this premise and abandon the book will be missing a fine suspense novel. Melanie returns home from work and discovers her child has been taken from her by the state. Then her house is sealed with crime-scene tape, and she learns that the cops, acting on a tip, have found in the house a stash of cocaine so big they conclude she must be a dealer. Before her streak of rotten luck has ended, she's accused of murder, tossed into prison, and deserted by her husband. Help comes from an unlikely source, prosecutor Amy Kaye, who is handling Melanie's case but senses uncanny connections between the drug bust and the rape. The mix produces some mighty courtroom scenes and introduces a surprise hero: a dumpy defense attorney who has motives of his own. A diverting, exciting read, with an ending you won't see coming.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)