I haven't come across this series of books before, but it works as a stand alone read. The story concerns a Halloween party, where 9 residents get together to enjoy a party. They are all good friends and live in Black Gale, a close of houses. By the following morning, all these residents have vanished overnight,leaving no trace whatsoever . Their phones have not been used, and no money has been withdrawn from relevant bank accounts.
Robert Raker is a missing person investigator and is asked to find answers. Running in tandem with this story is a murder mystery set in America about a suicide/ murder investigation. Jo Kader, is a lovely detective, fighting against sexism in 1980's L.A. and it does make uncomfortable reading for all of us females that experienced such treatment back then. She is a strong, determined character, who finds out that you really can't have it all, it's job or career.
I liked this book, but didn't love it. It was a thriller, but very wordy, everything was over explained in great detail, that really wasn't necessary . I found that by the middle of this book, I started to get annoyed by this, it started to lose pace and became lack lustre. It became too contrived and too neatly tied up, the ending was slightly deflating and so convenient for the story. The two cases seemed to collide rather clumsily, and seemed a lot of work just to discover a murderer. Not my cup of tea this time.

I haven’t read any Tim Weaver before, and it wasn’t stated when I requested this title that it was in an established series which was annoying. I wouldn’t have requested it if I had known, but this story can be read as a stand-alone, albeit there are things that are referenced & ongoing storylines that have come from previous books. Due to this I didn’t personally care about the drama with Healy & the journalist who is trying to do a story on Raker.

The most interesting parts of the book for me were Jo Kader's, a lot of the rest I feel could have been edited out - there is an awful lot of explaining every little thing, & I feel like the plot was so convoluted, whereas the initial premise for the book was interesting enough without going that far to make things as shocking as possible.

My initial feelings after finishing this book were that it's very male dominated, & it felt like the writing was aimed more towards making it into a film or tv series rather than just enjoying the story for what it is. The ending also really annoyed me, the jumps back & forth in time (not across the LA/Raker sections, just within the final section) weren’t difficult to follow but felt awkward, & the fake out of thinking someone’s dead, then they’re not, then they possible are was just infuriating to me.

I’m sure if you’re a fan of Weaver or this series you will enjoy it, but I’m afraid it just wasn’t for me,

I really liked the idea of the premise of this book, so I decided to give an unknown (to me) author a go, and I wasn’t disappointed.
This story gripped me right from the beginning; what had happened to the residents of Black Gale? I had expected a slight preview into their lives before they disappeared and I was expecting to be there with them on Halloween but to turn a chapter and them be gone. However, the story starts off with them already missing, and David Raker is starting an investigation two and a half years after their disappearance.
I really enjoyed how the investigation unfolded, and nothing was kept from us the readers. We were watching it develop and finding out things as Raker did. I saw the massive twist, but only as Raker figured it out, it really did feel like I was there alongside him as his sidekick!
It was really well-written, had lots of hooks to keep you reading just another chapter before going to sleep! The characters were likeable, and you really worried when any peril was about to befall them.
The only thing that let this book down for me, but won’t be a problem for many, was the fact that it was book ten of the David Raker series. It doesn’t say this on NetGalley, which is a massive bugbear of mine. I did feel like I had missed out on a lot as so much has contributed to his career, his insecurities and relationships with other present characters. All of these events must have happened in previous books, so although the story of Black Gale is stand-alone, that of David Raker is not. No matter how much the premise gripped me I wouldn’t have requested it had I known it was book ten! This was, however, a minor inconvenience and I did still, luckily, enjoy this book. So much so that I am going to have to go back and read the previous nine books.

I love the David raker series.and this one didn't disappointe. It sees raker investigated the dissapence of an entire village of people. It does bring back his friend that he helped disappear,this however may soon get more complicated as raker has a journalist following him who it appears wants to destroy all that he has worked for. Tim is an exceptional writters who knows how to tell a story. The next one is hopefully going to be as good.

Where has Tim Weaver been all my life? Not sure how (because I love the kind of mystery/thriller that he writes), but I'd never heard of him until now. I requested this book because the premise appealed to me: an entire village goes missing? How does that work? Well, the village in question is more of a hamlet but the story is a clever one and I really enjoyed it.

David Raker specialises in finding missing persons. He has been contacted by the relatives of nine missing villagers, who gathered together for a Halloween dinner party and then vanished. Their houses are immaculate, there is no evidence that anything happened and no clues to solve the mystery. Running alongside this is a story set in Los Angeles in 1985, about an American detective trying to solve a suicide that might be a murder. Are the two events connected?

No One Home is a completely gripping read, full of twists and genuine surprises. I particularly loved the character of Joline 'Jo' Kader, who has to battle against 1980s sexism and misogyny to solve her case. It did take me a few chapters to get into this story, because I hadn't appreciated that this is #10 in a series and I hadn't read any of the others! The only thing I didn't like was the long explanation at the end of the book as it seemed repetitive, but don't be tempted to skip it because there is a rather excellent twist following it!

I really enjoyed No One Home and plan to go back and read some of the earlier stories in this series. It's fast-paced, with lots of nail-biting moments, and I can see it appealing to fans of authors such as Harlan Coben and Lee Child.


No One Home is due to be published in the UK on the 16th May 2019

Thank you to Tim Weaver and Michael Joseph for my copy of this book, which I requested from NetGalley and reviewed voluntarily.

I was hooked from page one. This thriller develops layers as it goes along, and keeps you guessing right till the end. The main investigator is a likeable, flawed character, with the requisite tragic background. Some scenes are very tense, excellent descriptions. It kept me up till night at night to finish it... What more can I say!

Whilst I did enjoy No One Home, I didn’t love it. The premise of the book is great. The synopsis totally drew me in and I was expecting a thriller of a book but sadly I found it to be a bit lacklustre. I felt the middle section seemed to lose pace and that the book could have been wrapped up a lot quicker than it was.
Still an enjoyable read that I’m sure many others with love. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin UK Michael Joseph and the author for the chance to review.

On Halloween night, four households gather for a party in the tiny Yorkshire village of Black Gale. Three hours in, they head outside, onto the darkened moors, to play a drunken game of hide and seek. None of them return. There's no trail, no evidence and no answers. An entire village has just vanished.

With the police investigation dead in the water, the families of the disappeared ask missing persons investigator David Raker to find out what happened. But nothing can prepare him for the truth.

This is another gripping thriller by Tim weaver. Full of intrigue and a clever plot. It had lots of twists and turns but, that didn’t stop Raker working out what happened, even though he has a lot of obstacles stacked against him. I’m not sure what else to say, an unpredictable tale, with an ending that has huge impact, powerfully emotional on every level. It’s actually no less than I’ve come to expect from this author but every single time he manages to floor me,

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin UK Michael Joseph for an advance copy in return for a fair and honest review.

Jolene Kader is a Los Angeles Police Officer assigned to investigate a murder case in the 1980's where the suspected murderer commits suicide. She is not convinced but as she is the only female officer surrounded by sexist, dominant male, colleagues the case is closed.
David Raker is a missing persons investigator hired to look into the disappearance of 9 people in a small.Yorkshire village two and a half years ago on Halloween that has left the police with no clues, no sightings and no.bodies.
How do these two cases on two separate continents link together decades later?
Such a brilliantly written book that had me intrigued from the first chapter. So many twists as the truth begins to slowly surface and the pace begins to pick up to a frantic, fantastic conclusion..
No need to worry if you haven't read the rest of the series, I haven't - yet! - as the book is a self contained story. A must read for crime thriller lovers.

I have read every Tim Weaver/David Raker PI books, and this is up there with the best of them. The synopsis had me sucked in when the neighbours disappeared on Halloween night and that was before I realised there was a parallel story going on which was set in LA in the 1980's! It was like reading two books in one and I loved both of them. They converged satisfyingly near the end of the book. As usual, reality needs to be suspended to comprehend some elements, but that's why I read fiction! Highly recommended. I think this would stand up if you haven't read any of the previous series too.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. What an enigma, how can 9 people just disappear overnight?
And how can David Raker find out just what happened after two and a half years have gone by?
I have read some earlier Raker books but not all so some of the back story was missing but nothing that spoiled this read - just some details missing that didn’t impact on this case.
This book was puzzling, entertaining and addictive reading. I really wanted to know what had happened. I had an inkling on one issue but most of it was gradually discovered as the story progressed.
I would have given 5 stars but not all questions were answered at the very end which is something I dislike. However I’d happily read more by this author.

Another really great book in the David Raker series with him as the missing persons investigator.
Tim Weaver knows how to spin a story well .Ratcheting up the intrigue and mystery around a Hamlet of nine persons who go missing on the same night . Two years later the relatives of the missing nine get together and contact Raker and employ him to find out what has happened .
A great read culminating in a climax that is totally unforeseen. I really enjoyed this book kept me glued to the pages wanting to know what it was all about. A real puzzler that moves with danger to the investigator,as he pulls out all his resources in a bid to recreate that night. Things start to go down hill for him quickly as other sinister people take an interest in his enquiries with danger around every corner. With his life being threatened every footstep needs to be doubly cautious .

Tim Weaver is a great writer of the suspense novel,well written and satisfying for the reader.Looking forward to the next one.

Nine people sit down to a Halloween dinner in a tiny isolated hamlet. None of them is seen again.Two and a half years on the police have got no where. How can 9 people simply disappear with no clues? David Raker is called in and the chase is on.

This is a well written thriller with a well constructed plot and great characters. This is book 10 in the David Raker series but it can be read as a stand alone book without distracting from the main story. Yes, there are some threads which are obviously from previous books but they didn’t detract from my enjoyment. To be honest they simply made me want to track down the rest of the series to read them in order!

David Raker is a private detective who specialises in missing people. He is disliked by the police and hounded by a persistent journalist. He has little home life and doesn’t really fit into standard society – not unusual for a detective! As a main character he is likeable in a rough and ready way. There is another thread in this book from the1980s with a young American detective, Joline Kraker who is fighting to survive in a male dominated & mysogynistic police force who really don’t like detectives with hunches. A woman struggling to combine family & a career. A great character – strong & feisty but backing down & biding her time. I’ll leave you to discover how the two threads eventually come together. As for the villans of this piece – I won’t talk about who they are as it is important for the reader to discover them for themselves. Suffice to say they are not as straight forward as they seem!

I loved this book. It was well written and clever. It isn’t wall to wall action – in fact a lot of time is spent trawling files, the internet & making phonecalls. Of course there is action as well – the ending being particularly good. However my interest never waned and I wished I could have read this in one sitting. If you like a good thriller then I can heartily recommend this one – it is definitely a good thriller!

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

This is an intriguing story marked by frequent revelations to help the reader put together how the events took place. The fact that this mystery is being pursued by a searcher of missing persons rather than the police helps the strangeness of it all. It does take a bit of imagination to suggest that nine people can be kidnapped from a dinner party of neighbours then taken miles away to be murdered and the description of the eventual solution and aftermath does take too long. The parallel events in .California are integral to the plot and in some ways seem more real and more likely. Nevertheless,even with these reservations,it is a good read.

The 10th book in a series featuring missing persons investigator David Raker. It works standalone though.

Nine people have disappeared without a trace from a cluster of houses in rural North Yorkshire. 30 years earlier in Los Angeles, detective Jo Kader is frustrated to have to drop a murder case....

Well-written, fast-paced and compelling. A rather oddly sequenced ending though, and for me a rather far-fetched plot rescued by the writing.

David Raker #10

I did not realise when I requested this book that it was part of a series. How can nine people in a village vanish? Well it was Halloween. David Raker has been hired several years later to try and discover what had happen to the nine people that had went missing from Black Gale. There is no trace of them or any evidence left behind. The ending leaves a cliffhanger. Raker seemed both a likeable and believable character. It's a well written story with a great plot that caught my attention from the start. This book can be read as a standalone.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Brilliant, had me hooked from page 5 until the very end. Having never read any of this author’s books before I was a bit worried I wouldn’t understand the story of Raker but it is so cleverly written, you do get to know the previous background information. I love the way the two stories interconnected, I don’t usually like stories that go back 20 plus years and come forward and go back, but it is so good I thoroughly recommend. I don’t want to write about the story for fear of giving anything away, but the big question is ‘where did the nine go?’ Read this story, You will not be disappointed.

I was hooked on this book immediately and read it in one night.

Set across two timelines in two countries I wondered where it was going but it all came together perfectly. I need the next book in the Raker series asap! A great series that has me hooked.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

I have heard so many good things about Tim Weaver's series featuring missing person investigator, David Raker, that I finally decided to try it, this is the 10th addition. What I can say is that Weaver is a brilliant crime writer, and here he gives us a central mystery worthy of The Twilight Zone. Two and half years in a tiny Yorkshire Dales rural settlement of Black Gale, the 9 residents sit down for a Halloween dinner party, playing games, taking photos and drinking too much, only for every single one of them to mysteriously disappear into thin air. This is a close knit community of close friends, loved their isolated location, and the last known record of them are the photos from Halloween. There is no evidence of any outsiders arriving, no signs whatsoever of foul play, the entire scene looks normal, missing are the residents mobile phones, wallets and purses, and a camper van that has never been recovered.

With the initial media furore dying down, and a police force unable to find any trace of the occupants, David Raker has been called by three of the relatives to see if he can succeed where everybody else has failed. Raker is largely a loner with a tragic personal history, with a daughter, Annabel, he has only been aware of for a short while, and has made enemies of the police, given he has succeeded in the past where they have clearly failed. It is certainly not usual for him to be looking for 9 people, but are they dead or alive now? In 1985, Joline 'Jo' Kader is the only woman working for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, a time of poisonous misogyny and discrimination that Jo has to battle to survive. It is a time when the city of LA is being terrorised by a particularly brutal and depraved serial killer dubbed The Night Stalker. Jo catches two murder cases that are to haunt her entire working life, a unidentified body found in an acid bath in a Motel and a apparent suicide that she is certain is murder. In a narrative that goes back and forth in time, Raker, helped by Colm Healy, finds himself in the most twisted, challenging and dangerous of cases, where the connections between LA and the Black Gale residents begins to emerge.

I am so delighted to have discovered this superb series and author. Tim Weaver weaves an atmospheric mystery that is absolutely gripping reading, with masses of suspense, and such terrific characterisation. Raker makes an appealing central protagonist, a good man who has helped a friend, Colm Healy, despite the fact it puts him in danger of prison. He is under constant stress being harrassed by a journalist, threatening to do a public exposure of his life. Despite being warned off and seriously threatened to stop investigating, for David, this isn't just a job for him, it's his life. This is a fantastic and enthralling piece of crime fiction, and a series that I think many crime fiction and thriller readers will love. Many thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph for an ARC.

A fascinating book with a story that becomes deeper and captivating as it evolves. Two stories that head towards each other with dramatic conclusions. Definitely recommended.