Review - Local Gone Missing

Title:   Local Gone Missing

Author:  Fiona Barton
Series:  Elise King #1

Genre:   Mystery/Thrillers

Publisher:   Berkley

Format:  Kindle ARC
No. of Pages:  384

Date of Publication:  June 14, 2022

My Rating:  4 Stars

DESCRIPTION:

Detective Elise King investigates a man's disappearance in a seaside town where the locals and weekenders are at odds with each other in this rich and captivating new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow.

Elise King is a successful and ambitious detective--or she was before a medical leave left her unsure if she'd ever return to work. She now spends most days watching the growing tensions in her small seaside town of Ebbing--the weekenders renovating old bungalows into luxury homes, and the locals resentful of the changes.

Elise can only guess what really happens behind closed doors. But Dee Eastwood, her house cleaner, often knows. She's an invisible presence in many of the houses in town, but she sees and hears everything.

The conflicts boil over when a newcomer wants to put the town on the map with a giant music festival, and two teenagers overdose on drugs. When a man disappears the first night of the festival, Elise is drawn back into her detective work and starts digging for answers. Ebbing is a small town, but it's full of secrets and hidden connections that run deeper and darker than Elise could have ever imagined.

Link to purchase the book

MY THOUGHTS:

Senior detective Elise King is recovering from breast cancer but she is ready to get back to work. When a man named Charlie disappears Elise starts looking for him, and this means asking a lot of questions. Elise doesn’t have to prove herself for when she gets back on the job, as she is excellent at her job. However, her self-confidence could definitely use a boost.

There’s another matter that concerns Elise. She resides in a small town called Ebbing, where the residents are vehemently resisting the town’s recent developments. Questioning these locals won’t be an easy task for Elise. Additionally, there’s a music festival that where two teens overdosed. This incident raises the intriguing possibility of a coincidence, considering that Charlie was last seen at the very same festival.

This book is not only narrated from multiple perspectives but also employs a dual timeline narrative. I’m impressed with the direction of this book as it addresses a serious issue related to the drugs present at the festival, Charlie’s disappearance, and Elise’s lingering physical and mental limitations. Enter Dee and Ronnie, two characters who play significant roles in Elise’s journey. Ronnie, in particular, proves to be a valuable ally, offering her assistance in various ways. I anticipate that Dee and Ronnie will continue to be prominent characters in future books of this new series.

This book offers a compelling narrative with a strong connection to the protagonist, Elise, and other characters. The mystery is well-crafted, and the intricate plot, characterized by lies, secrets, and unexpected twists, keeps the reader engaged and entertained.

Many thanks to Berkley and to First to Read for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

My career has taken some surprising twists and turns over the years. I have been a journalist - senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at The Mail on Sunday, where I won Reporter of the Year at the National Press Awards, gave up my job to volunteer in Sri Lanka and since 2008, have trained and worked with exiled and threatened journalists all over the world.

But through it all, a story was cooking in my head.
The worm of my first book infected me long ago when, as a national newspaper journalist covering notorious crimes and trials, I found myself wondering what the wives of those accused really knew - or allowed themselves to know.

It took the liberation of my career change to turn that fascination into a tale of a missing child, narrated by the wife of the man suspected of the crime, the detective leading the hunt, the journalist covering the case and the mother of the victim.

Much to my astonishment and delight, The Widow was published in 36 countries and made the Sunday Times and New York Times Best Seller lists.

It gave me the confidence to write a second book ,The Child, in which I return to another story that had intrigued me as a journalist. It begins with the discovery of a newborn's skeleton on a building site. It only makes a paragraph in an evening newspaper but for three women it's impossible to ignore.

The Child will be published in June 2017 and I am embarking on my next novel. My husband and I are still living the good life in south-west France, where I am writing in bed, early in the morning when the only distraction is our cockerel, Titch, crowing.

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