Keep Your Friends Close

Keep Your Friends Close (2023) is a psychological thriller by bestselling author Lucinda Berry. A former clinical psychologist specializing in childhood trauma, Berry draws on her professional expertise to explore the characters’ extreme behaviors and fractured relationships. The novel centers on an exclusive group of mothers in West Hollywood whose carefully constructed lives unravel after one of them is found murdered during a party. The ensuing investigation exposes a web of secrets, jealousy, and betrayal hidden beneath their flawless facades. The book examines themes of The Corrosive Power of Secrets in Friendships, The Performance of Motherhood and Social Status, and The Unreliability of Perception in a World of Deceit. Berry is also known for other popular thrillers, including The Perfect Child and Under Her Care.

This guide is based on the 2023 Thomas & Mercer digital edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of death, death by suicide, illness, graphic violence, substance use, addiction, mental illness, emotional abuse, bullying, physical abuse, child abuse, gender discrimination, racism, and sexual content.

Plot Summary

The narrative begins at a party in Beverly Hills where Kiersten McCann, head of the West Hollywood Moms’ Club, is found dead in her swimming pool. A member of the club named Brooke Lyons, who attempted CPR, is questioned by the lead investigator, Detective Perez. Brooke’s unusual calmness draws Perez’s suspicion. Kiersten’s best friend, Whitney Gilmore, is overwhelmed with grief and lunges at Brooke, blaming her for the death, before being restrained by another friend, Jade Porter. In her interview, Whitney describes their exclusive West Hollywood Moms’ Club and insists that Kiersten, an expert swimmer, could not have drowned accidentally. Jade corroborates this, adding that during the rescue attempt, a frantic Brooke began pounding violently on Kiersten’s chest, breaking a rib just before paramedics arrived.

A flashback reveals that, in the months leading up to the party, Brooke’s wife, Abby, abruptly ended their marriage to pursue a relationship with a younger woman, Liza. The separation has left Brooke devastated, and her erratic behavior fuels the other women’s suspicions in the wake of Kiersten’s death.

Two days after the party, the women learn from a news report that Kiersten was 10 weeks pregnant. The six friends present at the end of the party, Brooke, Whitney, Jade, Natasha, Taylor, and Colleen, meet at Jade’s house before their formal police interviews. During her interview, Whitney is shocked when Detective Perez reveals that Kiersten’s death was a homicide, caused by blunt force trauma to the head. Whitney immediately names Brooke as a suspect, questioning her mental health. The police go on to confront Brooke with her recent attack on Liza at a party. To deflect suspicion, Brooke tells Perez that Whitney and Kiersten had been fighting for weeks and that Jade was somehow involved in their conflict.

Further flashbacks reveal the secrets fracturing the friend group. Whitney, overwhelmed by her husband, Colin’s, gambling addiction, kept his latest relapse a secret from Kiersten, the first major secret in their lifelong friendship. Meanwhile, Jade confided in Whitney that her family was secretly bankrupt. When her young daughter, Lily, developed a rare form of cancer that required expensive experimental treatment, Whitney decided to help her financially by bringing her into her secret business, a high-end escort service that she has been operating under the guise of her talent agency. In the present, the police investigation uncovers this escort service and investigates several of Whitney’s clients with violent pasts, including one who worked as a caterer at the party.

Meanwhile, Whitney and Jade’s attempt to confront Brooke, who they believe is the killer, devolves into a hostile argument. Abby, fearing for her and her son, Julian’s, safety, takes the baby and moves into Whitney’s house. Brooke reports that Julian has been kidnapped, leading to an emergency custody hearing. The judge, citing Brooke’s frantic social media posts as evidence of mental illness, orders her to undergo a psychological evaluation and grants Abby temporary custody, enraging Brooke.

The investigation takes another turn when Detective Perez reveals that Colin has been secretly speaking with the police. A suspicious Whitney installs a spy app on his phone, which uncovers that he is having an affair with Jade. Whitney then follows Jade and discovers that she is not taking Lily to the cancer clinic: Jade faked her daughter’s illness. Whitney confronts Colin, who admits to the affair and promptly leaves. She then confronts Jade, who confesses that faking Lily’s cancer was Colin’s idea. Their plan was for Whitney to bring Jade into the escort business so Jade and Colin could embezzle funds and start a new life together. As Jade confesses, Whitney reveals that Colin has taken all the money and fled the country alone.

Detective Perez and the police arrive at Jade’s house with her husband, Ryan. Ryan plays a voicemail that Jade accidentally left him on the night of the murder, in which she is heard trying to resuscitate Kiersten and apologizing. Ryan also gives the police the murder weapon, an award trophy from the party, which he found hidden in their laundry room. Jade is arrested. In jail, she confesses her motive to Ryan. Kiersten caught her on a secret call with Colin and threatened to expose the affair to Whitney. In a panic, Jade grabbed the trophy and struck Kiersten on the head. Believing that Kiersten was only unconscious, she dragged her outside for fresh air, but when she realized Kiersten was dead, she pushed her into the water to make it look like an accident.

Following Jade’s arrest, Whitney returns home, only to discover that Abby has been stabbed to death. In the bathroom, she finds a bloody and intoxicated Brooke sitting in the bathtub, holding a chef’s knife and nursing Julian. Brooke claims that Abby refused to let her see him as ordered by the court. Brooke, too, is arrested.

As Whitney reels from these events, she receives a phone call from Kiersten’s husband, Tommy: A DNA test has revealed that their daughter, Rinley, was not biologically related to either Tommy or Kiersten, implying that Kiersten used someone else’s embryo to become pregnant. A final flashback from Kiersten’s perspective reveals her own secret. Unable to have biological children, she secretly used one of Whitney’s viable embryos from their shared fertility clinic to become pregnant with Rinley and was preparing to use another for a second child.