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  • Closer Than You Think

  • The Cincinnati Series, Book 1
  • By: Karen Rose
  • Narrated by: Susie James
  • Length: 22 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (877 ratings)
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Closer Than You Think cover art

Closer Than You Think

By: Karen Rose
Narrated by: Susie James
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Summary

Electrifying. Addictive. Suspenseful. At the top of her game. Karen Rose, the multiple Sunday Times Top Ten best seller, returns with a new mini-series, new characters and her best novel yet.

Deacon Novak has returned home. The experienced FBI Agent knows that his move to Cincinnati's Major Crime Enforcement Squad will be challenging, but the greater challenge will be saving his younger brother before he becomes the kind of criminal Deacon is chasing.

Faith Corcoran has escaped her identity. Being a therapist to victims of sex crimes was rewarding, but her work with their offenders has jeopardized her life. Her move represents a chance to build a new life in the empty old house her grandmother has left her.

What Faith doesn't know is that a killer has made the house his playground, taking girls into the basement and murdering them. And now Faith is about disturb his fun. With a murderer focused on her, Faith is going to have to put her trust in Deacon if she's going to survive. Because this killer is always closer than she thinks....

The first in a brand new series - and Karen Rose at her tense, tantalising, and thrilling best.

©2014 Karen Rose Hafer (P)2014 Headline Digital

What listeners say about Closer Than You Think

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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Story
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  • 3 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great Thriller

I always fall slightly in love with the leading men in Karen Rose books, and this happened again with Deacon, FBI, haha.

A therapist is involved in a road accident when a naked, injured girl runs in front of her car. Already part of an ongoing stalking incident, the therapist is rightly terrified when she discovers bodies are being buried in her new house! Enter Deacon and the FBI trying to work out who the baddie is.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Took a while

Overall I enjoyed the book and story line but struggled with the tone of the reader, she has a nice voice but the accent and dips in her tone were irritating, when I was in a noisy inviroment I could hear her one minute and not the next.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Too closely related

Enjoyed it very much but felt there were too many people in it, particularly relatives! Was inclined to get mixed up and have to go back to listen again.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Thoroughly hooked!

The plot kept me guessing all the way through, narration was excellent. If I have one tiny complaint it's that there were a lot of raunchy parts to this story, which is fine when you're reading a book, but when you're listening out loud in the garden and you notice your neighbours have suddenly gone quiet. Ever so slightly embarrassed.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Good story but ....

The pace of the story kept being interrupted by sex scenes. Not sure if I will listern to the next in the series

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

gripping. loved it.

twists and turns. Made me really invest in the characters. long book but worth every minute.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Exciting doesn't cover it

What did you like most about Closer Than You Think?

This was a real galloping story, little pause in the action. A reall "page turner"

What did you like best about this story?

Everything, but could have done with a little less graphic sex.

Have you listened to any of Susie James’s other performances? How does this one compare?

No, but was delighted with this performance

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Very much so, but it was just too long

Any additional comments?

Great book, just found out it is a series, so will be looking for the others.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

gripping story - best "read"

buy it, the suspense grips you and characters are great. you won't regret buying It

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Warning! Long winded unhappy rant follows......

I love reading Karen Rose books, but as an audiobook this really disappoints, with too much unnecessary detail and too many irrelevant side characters. For example, a detailed sub-plot about the deaf brother’s troubles and his HIV sister added nothing to the story, and the unique appearance of the hero was worth mentioning once or twice, but not repeatedly throughout the entire book. Furthermore, the constant reference to the fact that the H smelled like cedar and always wore the same long black coat, and the h travelled with a Hello Kitty travelcase, was just silly

The survival skills of the heroine were unreal. The bad guy murdered so many that I lost track (and lost interest) in the ever increasing body count (20? 30?), but he kept missing the heroine. I was starting to feel a bit sorry for the bad guy, not to mention all the other people who got killed or injured instead of the h. Or maybe this just reflects my irritation at the saintly, saccharine “too perfect to be true” heroine who seemed unrealistically well-adjusted considering what she had experienced during her lifetime. Everyone adored and respected her within a few hours of meeting her, but I could see no rational reason for this.

The romance aspect was just – yuk. I was revolted when the H was lying on top of the h as they crawled out of sight of the sniper, with the dying body of an innocent bystander a few feet away, and they were both getting turned on by the physical contact. So inappropriate it made me lose respect for them both. Considering the amount of murders or near-murders surrounding the heroine, for her to be feeling constantly horny was just ridiculous. I would have thought a complete physical and mental breakdown would have been more appropriate to the situation. I also had a problem with the appalling lack of ethics of a cop who, within 24 hours of meeting, starts a sexual relationship with someone who was at the centre of a mass murder he is currently investigating. Furthermore, most of his professional colleagues are OK with this development!

But it seems ethics are not much of an issue here, as the h thought it ok to use information gained in confidential therapy sessions to set up her patients for arrest. But hey, that’s ok, because they’re sex offenders. So the therapist decides she can judge who is guilty, better than the Court system, and act accordingly. In one incident she sat outside a house, in her car, after instructing a teenage abuse victim to hide in a cupboard to obtain proof that her abuser was now attacking her little sister. The h struck me as seriously unbalanced if she though these self righteous and morally ambiguous vigilante actions in any way justified the danger she was putting her abuse victim in. In fact, the more I read, the more I thought she needed serious therapy herself. However the police seemed to think she was entirely rational, because soon they had her sitting in on their case conferences, were freely allowing her access to confidential case information, and not only seemed happy to inform her of every aspect of the case, they even allowed her to help with the investigation. As many of the (many) suspects were her relatives this was ethically wrong from whichever way you look at it!

This book just dragged on and on and on (a bit like my review!). Every few pages carried a heading giving day, time and location which was completely unnecessary and just disrupted the flow of the narration. I have read, and loved, many of Karen Rose’s books, so maybe the problem is that as this was on audio, I could not easily speedread or skip the parts that bored me. And I love good sex scenes in books and dislike the “closed door” scenario, but this had sex scenes described in great detail at entirely inappropriate times. Maybe I’m getting old, but I like a little romance before the sex, not dead bodies, torture victims and murder attempts. This couple just did not seem real. Their relationship developed overnight (literally!), was founded on nothing but mutual lust, and it was simply inappropriate in every way. Both characters constantly mused on how exhausted they were, at one stage the H realising that tiredness was actually impairing his ability to do his job, and yet when they have time to sleep, they have sex instead. On one occasion they are both comforting each other after the realisation that yet more people have died because of them, and they end up having sex again. Yuk!

At the end of the book the epilogue neatly tied up all the many loose ends, but as there were so many characters involved I could not even remember who some of them were. And as so many characters were referred to in different ways, it was difficult to keep track of all the generations involved and their relationships to each other. For example the h’s mother was referred to by name (I’ve forgotten what it was!), but was also referred to as wife, daughter, aunt, sister, granddaughter and so on as applicable. I felt I needed a family tree in front of me to try and keep track of the complicated family dynamics that formulated the whole plotline. I was also vaguely annoyed that the h received two wonderful job offers, as a therapist, as a result of her busy week (the book only covered a week!) when I personally thought she was the one who needed therapy. She is closely tied to the torture and murder of 20 to 30 people, 17 (or was it 18?) bodies were found in her childhood home, but she was emotionally quite ready to move on a few days later and start a new job? Seriously?

In summary (finally!), will I read another Karen Rose book? Yes. She is a good writer with some really good books in her catalogue, but this book just seemed all over the place with no proper focus on getting the reader from A to B to Z. In fact it felt like it was written by a committee who insisted on including every possible social issue (This book had HIV, cancers, genetic abnormalities, bullying, gay relationships, three sets of twins, sex offenders, deafness, long-term medical issues, physical disabilities, computer hackers, child abuse, suicide, multiple car accidents, strokes, etc etc etc!) . The plot had so many strands in so many different directions I lost track and eventually lost interest in trying to make sense of who, what or where. In a book version I can flip back and forth when it gets confusing. On audio this is impossible and in the end I just gave up trying to figure out any of the clues. I guess it’s a credit to Karen Rose that even though I really disliked the romance aspect of this book, got seriously annoyed at the complicated plot directions, thought the two central characters displaying an appalling lack of ethics, and really did not like the heroine, I still had to listen to the end to find out whodunit!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Gripping

Could not stop listening. ! Great performance. Great plot.
Thoroughly enjoyable. Only prob didn't get anything done at all this weekend!

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6 people found this helpful