Up Close

Badlands Thriller, Book 3

By: Danielle Girard

Narrated by: Whitney Dykhouse

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.

In only a few months, the small town of Hagen has lost two high school seniors, both under strange circumstances. When a third senior, the mayor’s son, drives through the plate glass window of the town’s diner and ends up in a coma, the deaths no longer seem unrelated accidents. The town is paralyzed with fear. The police can find no good explanation. Other students deny any knowledge of what’s happening, but Detective Kylie Milliard is certain at least some are lying.

Hagen’s sole investigator, Kylie Milliard fears that something sinister is at play, but she can’t convince the town’s powers that be to take her concerns seriously. Mounting discord between herself and Hagen’s sheriff have her thinking that it may be time to leave Hagen for a bigger city and a new job, but she’s not going anywhere until she determines the connection between the self-destructive act of the mayor’s son and the two untimely deaths.

Whoever is behind the dangerous stunts doesn’t want to be discovered. To keep their secret, they’re willing to take out anyone who gets too close. With time running out before the next stunt, Kylie is in a race to solve the puzzle. She is all too clear that, until she does, no one—not the students, nor the town—is safe from danger.

“Danielle Girard is a phenomenal writer. In Up Close, her insightful and compulsively readable new novel, she creates a vivid portrait of a tight-knit small town grappling with a series of teenage deaths. Accidents or murder? Girard keeps you guessing until the final, breathtaking twist.” (Jillian Medoff, author of When We Were Bright and Beautiful)

©2023 Danielle Girard (P)2023 Danielle Girard

Yet Another Great One!

I am a big Danielle Girard fan, and this book was right up there with some of her best. I was hooked right from the start, and, true to Danielle form, I couldn't put it down until the very last credit was read. Great writing and great narration. Thanks for yet another great one!

Good. Not great

A few places the story line becomes predictable. Performance is good - but becomes a bit overdone at times.

180 personality turn!

In the first book Carl Gilbert was a complete jerk unfit to be a policeman and a bit of a buffoon. Now we are supposed to accept him as a possible romantic lead? NO! In part of this book Kiley was even unlikable for the first time.

So many twists and turns

Just when I thought I knew where the plot was going, it diverged, sometimes in multiple ways.

Sadly cliche

Possible spoiler.
I wish I could have liked this. I really liked the first two but this one was difficult for me.
I literally re-listened to the first two to enjoy the third book.
I hate the attack on Christians and Christian beliefs. I just feels like every book nowadays and every movie has some agenda.
Where are the books that are good just because they are good? Why is there ALWAYS an agenda? Isn’t there good writing anymore that doesn’t have some political or religious agenda?
This aspect really threw me off and it was hard to enjoy the rest of the book.
Please don’t write to please everyone. Just write because you are a good writer and can make things come to life!