Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Flack by Brad Parks

  

The Flack (Oceanview, February 3, 2026) by Brad Parks is another stand-alone thriller from the author of the Carter Ross investigative reporter series.

Curt Hinton and Angel Reddish meet as college freshmen and form an enduring bond that lasts through college, career ups and downs, and marriage. Eventually Angel’s degree in business and his strong career drive sent him across the country to California to serve as chief operating officer in a large logistics company that specialized in transporting electronic components used by the tech firms in Silicon Valley. Curt on the other hand became a journalist, committed to researching and reporting the news factually and completely. He found his livelihood growing increasingly constrained by the shrinking newspaper industry. When Angel contrived to offer him the position of public relations officer at his logistics corporation, he felt compelled to accept it.

It was an enormous upheaval for the Hintons to move from one coast to the other, but it was a golden opportunity. The people at the company are warm and welcoming, and Curt feels sure he will learn to fit in quickly. On his first day in the office, though, Angel is killed and Curt is too distraught to let the police handle the investigation. Angel was an essential part of Curt’s life and he felt he owed it to Angel to find out what happened and why.

Thus begins a cracking page-turner that gallops through a hair-raising story. Parks’ strong feelings about the compelling role journalists play in society is evident. The dedication to the book is to his colleagues at The Washington Post and The Star-Ledger and to all the newspaper people who have had to do something else with their lives. Early in the story he draws a clear line between the journalist and the public relations specialist: Journalists existed to search for and tell the truth. PR people existed to manipulate and obfuscate it. They were paid mouthpieces, spin masters, shills. Old school reporters referred to them as flacks.

Parks is a master at pulling in the reader from the beginning and keeping them engaged. More than once I doubted the likelihood of an action or event, such as how an established journalist could walk into a senior PR role, but setting all questions of credibility aside--it is fiction, after all--the book is a walloping good read.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Oceanview Publishing

·         Publication date: ‎February 3, 2026

·         Language: ‎English

·         Print length: ‎384 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1608096475

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1608096473

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4t38Gax

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Last Act by Brad Parks

The Last Act by Brad Parks (Dutton, 2019) is a stand-alone thriller from the author of the Carter Ross investigative reporter series. Tommy Jump’s acting career is winding down after a promising start as a child actor. He has aged out of juvenile parts, is too young for character parts, and is too short for dramatic leads. His long-time agent has died and no one else is willing to take him on. His girlfriend on the other hand is a talented painter and has generated a great deal of interest in her work. She seems poised for a huge leap upward in the art world. Tommy is determined to give her enough financial stability to allow her to focus on her work, if he can just figure out how.

While he’s wrestling with this economic quandary, a friend from high school, whom he has not seen for years, approaches him with a request. The friend is with the FBI now and the FBI is looking for an actor to infiltrate a minimum-security prison in West Virginia to become friends with a new inmate, a former accountant to a Mexican drug cartel who holds evidence on money laundering that would effectively shut the cartel down. The FBI is offering $75,000 for Tommy to agree to enter the prison under a fake identity and the same amount again if Tommy learns where the evidence is hidden.

Despite his girlfriend’s and his mother’s reservations, Tommy sees this opportunity as a lifeline to financial security. He memorizes the details of the persona that the FBI has created for him, signs a confession to a bank robbery under the new name, and appears before a judge for sentencing. Before he knows it, he’s actually in prison. While it’s minimum security, it’s still a prison. The food is horrible, he is assigned to work in the prison laundry, and the prison social worker keeps trying to make him sign up for classes. His cellmate is so huge the standard cell bed had to be modified to fit him. He never speaks but Tommy is still terrified of him.

The characters are wonderful. An actor with a family as protagonist is a refreshing change from alcoholic police detectives, military veterans with PTSD, and loner private investigators. Tommy’s girlfriend and his mother are as fully developed as he is; all of them exude ordinariness and normalcy. There are still incredibly violent bits in the scenes with the cartel but Tommy could be the neighbor down the street.

One of the fun details in the book is the prison currency, which is foil packets of tuna, not the usual cigarettes or other contraband. Bribes and favors are paid in tuna. Tommy has to bribe his way into the poker game where the accountant plays every week, so he asks his FBI contacts to provide several cases of tuna. They are mystified but they do. The carefully developed plot has one twist after another. Even the last few pages hold surprises. An excellent read!

Starred review from Library Journal.

·                     Hardcover: 384 pages

·                     Publisher: Dutton (March 12, 2019)

·                     Language: English

·                     ISBN-10: 1524743534

·                     ISBN-13: 978-1524743536

Aubrey Hamilton ©2019

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Crime Review Update

We feature new 20 reviews in each issue of Crime Review (
www.crimereview.co.uk), together with a top industry interview. This time
it’s author Brad Parks in the Countdown hot seat:
http://crimereview.co.uk/page.php/interview/4894



We’re on Twitter at:

Crime Review: @CrimeReviewUK

Linda Wilson: @CrimeReviewer

Sharon Wheeler: @lartonmedia



This week’s reviews are:



THE NATURE OF THE BEAST by Louise Penny, reviewed by Chris Roberts

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has retired to the small village of Three
Pines. He goes back to work when a nine-year-old boy disappears, and
discovers something in the woods that represents a threat to world safety.



MISSISSIPPI BLOOD by Greg Iles, reviewed by John Cleal

Dr Tom Cage is on trial for the murder of his former black nurse and lover,
but refuses help from his lawyer son Penn. Meanwhile the whole Cage family
is under threat from the Double Eagles, a savage KKK splinter group.



LOVE LIKE BLOOD by Mark Billingham, reviewed by Linda Wilson

The usually straitlaced DI Nicola Tanner teams up with archetypal maverick
DI Tom Thorne to investigate a series of killings.



THE LEGACY by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, reviewed by Ewa Sherman

Out of his depth detective Huldar and the child psychologist Freyja must
work together to get any information from seven-year-old Margrét, the only
witness to her mother’s horrific murder.



SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL by William Shaw, reviewed by John Cleal

A prostitute with an influential client list is murdered. DS Cathal Breen
finds himself blocked as the case assumes international importance.
Meanwhile, his pregnant girlfriend, former WDC Helen Tozer, brings her
intuition to the investigation – wanted or not!



DEADLY GAME by Matt Johnson, reviewed by Linda Wilson

Special Forces soldier-turned-police officer Robert Finlay is seconded to a
unit investigating the trafficking of young women from Eastern Europe into
sex slavery in the UK.



THE WOLF CHILDREN by Cay Rademacher, reviewed by Arnold Taylor

It’s 1947 and the long, freezing winter is over. The discovery of the body
of a young boy, lying across an unexploded bomb in the ruins of Hamburg
shipyard, sparks off an investigation which turns up further young victims.



TATTLETALE by Sara J Naughton, reviewed by Kati Barr-Taylor

Mags Mackenzie hasn’t spoken to her brother Abe for years, but she flies to
his bedside after he falls down four flights of stairs. It looks like
suicide, but something doesn’t ring true. 

STASI WOLF by David Young, reviewed by Chris Roberts

Oberleutnant Karin Muller is drafted south to assist in the recovery of two
infant twins who have been abducted, a search that eventually becomes very
personal.



RECONCILIATION FOR THE DEAD by Paul Hardisty, reviewed by John Cleal

Former SADF paratrooper Claymore Straker returns to South Africa to testify
before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and seek absolution for his
unwitting part in a horrifying act of inhumanity.



THE WHITE ROAD by Sarah Lotz, reviewed by Linda Wilson

Simon Newman has a bad reputation to live down. When he made a clandestine
trip into a Welsh cave with another man, only Simon came out alive. Now he
intends to make an attempt on Everest, the world’s highest mountain.



THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF A BOLLYWOOD STAR by Vaseem Khan, reviewed by
Chris Roberts

The Baby Ganesh Detective Agency is called into action once again when an
actor vanishes, disrupting the filming of a big-budget Bollywood
spectacular.



THE STOLEN CHILD by Sanjida Kay, reviewed by Kati Barr-Taylor

Evie is the stolen child, the little girl artist Zoe Morley and her husband
Ollie adopted. The little girl whose father wants her back.



THE SALT MARSH by Clare Carson, reviewed by John Cleal

Sam Coyle’s father lived and died in the shadows of undercover policing
among the criminals, spies and radicals of Cold War London. He left nothing
to his daughter but tradecraft, paranoia and enemies.



THE HIT by Nadia Dalbuono, reviewed by Sylvia Maughan

A television executive and his family are involved in a car accident. But
things are not necessarily what they seem.



DARKNESS by Karen Robards, reviewed by Kati Barr-Taylor

Gina watches in horror as a plane explodes and debris crashes into the icy
water around her. But her nightmare has only just begun.



HER DARKEST NIGHTMARE by Brenda Novak, reviewed by John Barnbrook

As a teenager, Evelyn Talbot was abducted, tortured and left for dead by
her psychopathic boyfriend. Now, as an adult she has established a mental
health facility in Alaska, specifically to research psychopaths. When the
murders start suspicions and fear grow in the isolated community.



THE KEEPER by Alastair Gunn, reviewed by Jim Beaman

DCI Antonia Hawkins believes that the victims of a serial killer have all
been kidnapped and then hunted down in a twisted game.



AMNESIA by Michael Ridpath, reviewed by John Barnbrook

Clémence is asked by her aged great aunt to look after an old friend, an
octogenarian, who has lost his memory in a fall and is living in an
isolated cottage in the Scottish Highlands. Helping him find his lost
memories opens many unwelcome doors.



THE AMATEURS by Sara Shepard, reviewed by Linda Wilson

Case Not Closed is a website devoted to solving cold cases. When Aerin
Kelly posts there about her sister’s disappearance and murder, several
members decide to help.



Best wishes


Sharon

Crime Time : FACES OF THE GONE – Brad Parks

Crime Time : FACES OF THE GONE – Brad Parks: Investigative reporter Carter Ross is trapped on the fifteenth floor of a [Newark] office building, having unlocked the secrets of a major ...

Review: "The Fraud: A Carter Ross Mystery" by Brad Parks

The latest in the Carter Ross Mystery series finds investigative reporter Carter Ross nervously awaiting the birth of his first child. Thirty-three years old he is the investigative reporter for The Newark Eagle- Examiner. With more than a decade on the journalism beat, Carter Ross is all too aware that the newspaper industry is in crisis.

So too is the city of Newark, New Jersey, in some ways. Carjacking has always been a problem primarily because of the ease of access to the nearby port where a vehicle could easily disappear into a cargo container on an ocean bound ship. Such a common occurrence that the locals know not to stop for a red light in the middle of the night.  A white bank executive, Kevin Tieymeyer, seems to have forgotten that while driving his Jaguar. He is now dead as a result of the latest carjacking. Local media is all over the story and his paper has to cover it as well while also giving readers something different than what they are seeing on television or hearing on the radio.

His editor, Tina Thompson, (also the mother of his child to be) wants him to cover the story as well as expand the reporting.  Kevin Tiemeyer isn’t the only one to recently lose his life in a carjacking. Being rich and while does not mean his story is more important than the story of another victim and his grieving family. Carter Ross has a recent carjacking murder victim in mind and intends to develop backgrounds on the people involved in both cases and illustrate how economics and race does not play a role in being a victim.

That is if he can get the families and friends of the recently deceased to cooperate and he is allowed to focus on the story. That is if he isn’t sent off to do a feel good piece on a local charity. That is if Tina will keep him fully updated as to how the baby and her are doing by actually sharing information and not walling him off as is her tendency. Tina and Carter have a complicated relationship and have had for several books. Having a baby is not going to uncomplicated it.

What began with the award winning Faces of the Gone is still powerfully good four more books later. Complicated mysteries coupled with Carter Ross’ occasional cynical humor and observations on life as well as his life’s work make this series well worth the reading. While one could easily start here with The Fraud a lot of the nuance and side joke humor would be lost. Instead, work your way up from the beginning and get here when you can. It will be worth it. 

The Fraud: A Carter Ross Mystery

Brad Parks

http://www.bradparksbooks.com/
Thomas Dunne Books (Minotaur Books)
http://thomasdunnebooks.com/
2015
ISBN# 978-1-250-06440-0
Hardback
352 Pages
$25.99


Material provided by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2015

MysteryPeople Q&A with BRAD PARKS

MysteryPeople Q&A with BRAD PARKS

"The Fraud" by Brad Parks (Lesa's Book Critiques)

The Fraud by Brad Parks  (Lesa's Book Critiques)

Review: "The Good Cop" by Brad Parks

The death of a police officer is always a tragedy. The fact that it is being described as a suicide and then wouldn’t be covered in any depth by the Newark Eagle- Examiner is something that reporter Carter Ross does not know when he goes off to interview the widow. Noemi Kipps is a formidable woman who thought that the happy family would soon be going to Disney World. Instead, she has to plan the funeral of her husband and somehow raise their 7 year old daughter and 5 month old son alone.

Police Officer Darius Kipps was an outstanding police officer, a devoted father, and a class act human being.  There was absolutely no reason for him the Sargent and Detective to commit suicide. According to his fellow officers that is exactly what he did in the bathroom at a precinct in Newark. It is something both the widow and, as he learns more, reporter Carter Ross can’t believe or accept.

The series that began so strongly with Faces Of The Gone continues here in another complex and interesting read. The Good Cop is the fourth novel in the series by award winning author Brad Parks. Flashes of humor and cynicism do not get in the way of a complex story involving the search for truth and justice amidst the shifting agendas of politicians, religious figures and others. As always in this series, the role of reporters and newspapers play a major role in the book, as do the evolution of relationships between Carter Ross and others in a business where getting the story correct and in detail should matter far more than getting it first.

While The Good Cop could be read as a stand-alone, those who have not read the series and take the time to do so before reading this book will appreciate this book far more than those who just grab this one. Fans of Cater Ross and his creator Brad Parks will find much to enjoy in this latest installment of a very good series.

The Good Cop

Brad Parks

http://www.bradparks.com

Minotaur Books (St. Martin’s Publishing Group)

http://www.minotaurbooks.com

2013

ISBN# 978-1-250-00552-6

Hardback (also available as an audio book and an e-book)

324 Pages

$24.99

Material Supplied by the good folks of the Plano Texas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2013

My review of  FACES OF THE GONE can be found here. 

Review: "THE GIRL NEXT DOOR" by Brad Parks

Despite the steadily worsening situation for newspapers across the country as well as at his own, Reporter Carter Ross still has a job at a Newark Eagle–Examiner. While the newspaper maybe having serious fiscal issues, the obituary pages are still one thing the bosses have not surrendered in the face of declining circulation and revenues. It was while he was reading the obits that Reporter Carter Ross come across the notice about the death of 42 year old Nancy B. Marino.

Single and hardworking, Nancy not only was a volunteer she held down two jobs with one of them being a carrier for Newark Eagle–Examiner. Reporter Ross knows the carriers who actually deliver the daily newspaper are the lifeblood of the paper. There is enough there in her obit to make him wonder who she was and why she died.  It sticks with him and he decides the deceased needs a follow-up piece of some sort. That leads him to attend her visitation where at least some in her family think there is a lot more to the story than a simple accidental hit-and-run. They aren’t alone in that feeling.

Told primarily from the viewpoint of Carter Ross, with the occasional and totally unnecessary switch to the viewpoint of the narcissistic killer, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR moves forward at a fairly steady pace. Full of Carter Ross battling increasing odds in his quest for the truth, the mystery contains plenty of action, adventure and misdirection as well as observations regarding the newspaper industry.  As always in this series that is not aimed at mystery readers who want the books serious and dark, there is plenty of humor. Some of it is in your face and some of it is subtle with the result there are plenty of laughs throughout the book.

This is the third in the series that began with Faces of the Gone followed by Eyes of the Innocent and is another solidly good one as Reporter Carter Ross continues to wisecrack at will while trying to find out the truth about what happened to Nancy Marino. Like any series it would be best to read them in order, but if you can’t, you can safely here as previous events are only briefly mentioned in the barest of terms.

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

Brad Parks

http://www.bradparks.com

Minotaur Books (St. Martins Publishing Group)

http://www.minotaurbooks.com

2012

ISBN#978-0-312-66768-9

Hardback

326 Pages

$24.99

Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano Texas Public Library System.
 

By the way Lesa Holstine has much on her blog today at http://www.lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/   about Brad Parks and his recent appearances out in Arizona. Covers his books, the writing process, the state of newspapers today and lots of other stuff including many pictures. Well worth checking out!
 

Kevin R. Tipple © 2012