Drawn by sheer possibility and that magic, golden-hour light of Los Angeles, Zoe Ann Weiss moves from London to California when she gets her two-book-deal break. It’s that Hollywood allure that also prompts her to accept an invitation from a famous actor on her 30th birthday, sparking a string of events that leads her to inspiration — and desperation.
In reality, this is Australian author Pip Drysdale’s fifth book. In this fictional world, “The Close-Up” is written as Zoe’s overdue sophomore book, inspired by the things she sees and experiences now that she has access to celebrity life via Zach Hamilton, an old flame who made his big break as an action star and was recently dubbed sexiest man alive.
The book's title and the fact that both the real author and her fictional character are thriller writers are about as far as the similarities go — fortunately for Drysdale, as her character finds herself running into worse luck and more dangerous secrets than she ever could have anticipated.
Because when the press leaks that Zach has a new love interest, the hate comes unrelenting.
Zoe soon finds herself the target of a stalker who seems to be following the plot of her debut novel — the one in which a human heart is left on the protagonist’s windshield and the main character dies in the end. She could just walk away and hope this all blows over, but Zoe needs to deliver the manuscript for her second book yesterday, and every scary thing that happens to her becomes fodder for her new novel. Each sexy, scandalous detail of Zach’s life and their romance can be catalogued and used, if she can blur the lines enough to get around the non-disclosure agreement and not ruin the good thing she has going with him.
All the while, LA nudges her, almost a character itself. The city’s influence is undeniable and persistent, persuasive in its ability to make your dreams come true even if, as the narrator notes, odds are you won’t make it there.
Combined with the present-tense, first-person perspective quintessential of thrillers, Drysdale drives up suspense by leaning heavily on the foreshadowing and fourth-wall breaking, particularly early on before things really pick up speed.
An unforeseeable penultimate reveal follows a rapid-fire, late-stage progression of twists and turns that would leave your head spinning if Drysdale wasn’t so skillfully keeping track of all the criss-crossing threads.
Everything is explained in the end in a bold but gratifying plot-dump — a relief after all the buildup. Because it's not so much about the plot points as much as it is about the underlying theme that calls into question the impact of a person's life and actions. What makes “The Close-Up” compelling is Zoe’s constant struggle with her legacy, with taking agency in her life and making it meaningful, weighing her career versus her relationships.
“The Close-Up” checks many boxes: steamy, suspenseful, surprising, meta. But it’s Drysdale’s momentous writing and underlying musings that really drive this novel home.
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AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews
Donna Edwards, The Associated Press