The Flack

 

The Flack by Brad Parks
2/3/26; 384 pages
Oceanview Publishing 

The Flack by Brad Parks is a very highly recommended thriller/suspense novel following a reporter turned corporate PR representative.

Curt Hinton and Angel Reddish have been best friends since college, so when Angel encourages Curt to leave his job as reporter at a dying newspaper and apply for the job as head of corporate communications at Balco, the Bay Area Logistics Company, where Angel is chief operations officer, Curt applies. With Angel's backing, he gets the very lucrative job and he and his pregnant wife Page move to a company-supplied dream house. When he arrives at Balco headquarters for his first day he discovers Angel was killed in a carjacking.

Curt with his new team is now responsible for writing the various press releases about Angel's death. When he talks to the Oakland PD he discovers Angel's death was a murder disguised to look like a carjacking, which leaves him reeling as Angel was not only his best friend, but a gregarious man that everyone liked. As he begins to integrate into the Balco corporate leadership handling the various crises, he begins to recognize that there is more going on behind the scenes than he realizes and he may be in danger.

This is an intriguing, well-written thriller that will pull you into the plot immediately. The opening scene is Angel's last minutes where, as dying, he tries to text Curt "Don’t take the job. Just run." but the text does not get sent. While you may have to set some disbelief aside, many of the plot points seem based on headlines you could encounter today, including corporate corruption and coverups. On the job Curt has to handle a variety of problems, including the threat of unionization and a scandalous video. There are other things as well.

Curt is a realistic, well-developed, intelligent character with both strengths and weaknesses. As head of communications, his background as a reporter becomes very useful, sometimes in unexpected ways. Curt seemingly makes some enemies along the way. There are antagonists embedded in the corporation or it's allies that are incredibly evil and predatory.

The Flack is a great choice for those who enjoy thrillers that read like a movie. Thanks to Oceanview Publishing for providing me with an advance reader's copy via Edelweiss. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.