Closer Than You Know: A Novel

Closer Than You Know starts with every parent's worst nightmare and doesn't let up. The story moves at a fast pace, the characters are interesting, and there are plenty of twists along the way. All of these things combined should've made this a four or even five star read, but my problems lay with the completely implausible events scattered throughout this tale. The reasons for what was happening to Melanie were obvious very early on, if not the identity of the person behind it all. However, that became pretty clear to me about half-way through, despite a ringer thrown into the mix. Without going into too much detail, so as not to give spoilers, I found it hard to believe that no one around the antagonist would have any idea of things going in their personal life, especially given who it is. So, by the time I reached the big reveal and conclusion, I was left with a couple of choices - either the big baddie is a brilliant criminal mastermind, which is a big stretch given what we're told, or everyone around them is an idiot. Either way, the story had potential, but came up a bit lacking in the delivery for me. I realize that this is fiction, so a certain amount of leeway can be given, but everything combined was just a little too much, making this just an okay read.