Keep You Close
A Novel
-
- $4.99
Publisher Description
A woman must confront her sense of right and wrong when the one person she loves most is accused of an unimaginable crime. From the New York Times bestselling author of Need to Know. . . .
A strange sensation runs through me, a feeling that I don’t know this person in front of me, even though he matters more to me than anyone ever has.
Stephanie Maddox works her dream job policing power and exposing corruption within the FBI. Getting here has taken her nearly two decades of hard work, laser focus, and personal sacrifices—the most important, she fears, being a close relationship with her teenage son, Zachary. A single parent, Steph’s missed a lot of school events, birthdays, and vacations with her boy—but the truth is, she would move heaven and earth for him, including protecting him from an explosive secret in her past. It just never occurred to her that Zachary would keep secrets of his own.
One day while straightening her son’s room, Steph is shaken to discover a gun hidden in his closet. A loaded gun. Then comes a knock at her front door—a colleague on the domestic terrorism squad, who utters three devastating words: “It’s about Zachary.”
So begins a compulsively readable thriller of deception and betrayal, as Stephanie fights to clear her son’s name, only to expose a shadowy conspiracy that threatens to destroy them both—and bring a country to its knees. Packed with shocking twists and intense family drama, Keep You Close is an electrifying exploration of the shattering consequences of the love that binds—and sometimes blinds—a mother and her child.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Early in this propulsive novel from bestseller Cleveland (Need to Know), 37-year-old single mother Stephanie Maddox finds a loaded handgun in the closet of her 17-year-old son, Zachary. Stephanie, who heads the FBI's Internal Investigations Section, knows she should alert the Washington, D.C., police, but when she confronts Zach, he professes ignorance. Stephanie assumes that one of Zach's friends stashed the gun without his knowledge, but then a fellow FBI agent warns her that the domestic terrorism squad suspects Zach is involved with an extremist group called the Freedom Solidarity Movement. Zach denies the charge, prompting Stephanie to investigate. Either Zach isn't who she thought, or someone from Stephanie's past is working to frame him. Equal parts conspiracy thriller and paranoia tale, Cleveland's latest exploits the distance between parents and teenagers while exploring the lines a patriot will cross to protect kin. Elements of the twisty plot strain credulity, but clearly established, ever-increasing stakes create an adrenaline-fueled narrative that will leave readers wanting more.