I think that it was wrong, but in the opposite direction.
My first thought was about ocean tides. If the moon at ~240,000 miles creates tides of 3 feet in mid-ocean up to 6-30 feet coastal, the moon at a much closer distance will create much much much higher tides, as the pull of gravity increases as the cube of the distance (between centers of mass). Those tides would scour the land far inland. Pikes Peak and Mt. Everest would probably be okay, the rest not so much.

Second thought was that tidal forces would fracture the moon into pieces which would rain down all over the Earth.

You're underestimating the destruction on earth. Just as tidal forces would fracture the moon, they would do the same to earth. The earth has a thin crust floating on a sea of magma. Tidal forces would fracture the crust, causing massive earthquakes and eventually fragmenting the whole crust, destroying the continents, and turning the earth back into a globe of molten rock. The tidal forces would also work toward equalizing the rotational speed of the earth and moon. If we start with the moon orbiting the earth twice a day, gradually the earth's rotation accelerates and the moon's slows down. As the moon slows, its orbit falls closer to earth until they collide and merge into one planet. Any way you look at it, earth as we know it is destroyed.