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Closer Than You Think by Lee Maguire



Author : Lee Maguire
Title : Closer The You Think
Published : 2018
Publisher : TCK Publishing
Pages : 312
Genre : Thriller







     Meet Bryce Davison, a gifted psychologist who can heal any troubled mind—except his own. You see, Bryce’s life is falling apart. His marriage is crumbling. His insomnia brings only half-sleep and troubled dreams—visions of dark and buried memories he’d rather forget or ignore completely. And the new female patient in his psych ward just might be more trouble than he’s able to cope with.…and now he has a stalker. Somebody’s been watching Bryce for a long time. Somebody who knows his life inside and out—his fears. Somebody with access to his most private places—his workplace, his home, his family…anywhere Bryce might have felt safe. They do their dirty work in the shadows… and they want Bryce Davison dead. So Bryce has got to get his life together. To save his patients. To save his family. To save his marriage…and his life. Because no matter how close Bryce gets to the deadly truth, the enigmatic stalker is always closer than he thinks.

     Let me start out by saying I received a free copy of this book for a fair and honest review. Books about Stalkers for me are always some of the most creepy. These stories are about people how try an insert themselves into the lives of others believing that it is there rightful place. They create fantasies that for them at least seep into the real world. They tell them selves the fairy tale long enough for it to seems as real as another encounter we have with those we call part of our lives. But there is always two sides to any coin and for all those that belive love is just a matter of pushing the puzzle pieces into the right order there are also those how simple want to tear another life to pieces. We have all read the stories be it in fiction or in the nightly headlines. 

     What we see more often than not it that the victim is female some poor women who has done nothing to gain this unwanted attention. What this author has done is to spin this around an place us in side the head of a male victim. It is through the thoughts and encounters of Dr Bryce Davison. For me it opens up a whole new chapter in the stalker genre. The way our lead tackles this unwanted attention changes the narrative. What we get is a subtle shift in the way this story plays out. For female victims the most dominate emotion is fear. For Davison it does carry some of that as you would come to expect by from the male psyche it is also anger and a need to confront who ever is doing it. A need to explore his own life in a search for clues as to why this is taking place. This is a man who's life is already starting to fall apart before the first signs appear. So what we get as the reader is a large pool of people to suspect in this crime. 

     For most of the book we are a clueless as the Doctor him self, he has so many people to distrust. If we where to look into our own lives how much do we truly trust the people around us. It is difficult to imagine anyone one around us of doing such a thing. So then we must also think of those people we don't. That stranger at the coffee shop who stares a little to long. On the person that follows us down the street. It brings about it's own form of psychosis. The author looks into what can happen to a man as he tries to think of all the people he has wronged and what is there ultimate long game. On top of all this he is also a man trying to do his job, dealing with teen who have there own mental health problems. The author show with remarkable care as these two worlds bleed into each other. How one directly impacts on the other. When does a duty of care to his patients become a direct risk to it's self.  it is with this muddying of waters that our story breaks it's peak and revelations tear it all down. There is a lot to like within this book. You find yourself being absorbed into the world. I especially liked that the author doesn't dumb down all the Doctor talk in the book. I enjoy look up terms and names for things I don't know, It helps to expand my own knowledge. 

     This book for me works in a whole different way to previous books about stalkers. There is a shift from the feeling that creeps up the back of your spine in a cold tingling way. For me it allows for much more of a mystery element. We become just as invested as the doctor in pulling apart  the clues and motives as to this offender.  Somethings still cross over however, what could he have possibly done wrong to warrant all this. While a little slow to start off once it gets going I could not pull my self away from the book and by the end of the book I was completely in the doctors head space. 

     For further information or to buy the book please feel free to check out the links bellow. 



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