Initially this story felt like a young adult story because of the teenagers but as the story developed and became more intense that feeling disappeared.

This story was like a scary rollercoaster, I wanted to shut my eyes at the bad bits when I felt like something was going to happen , there were highs and there were lows.
I found myself suspecting everyone of Sadie going missing and was constantly wondering was she dead or missing.

This is my first novel by Simon Lelic although I have had another of his books on my reading list for some time.
In The Search Party, Sadie Saunders has vanished, and she is believed to have been killed. One of Sadie's circle of friends is the primary suspect so five of them set off to search for her in the woods where she was last seen... with terrible consequences.
This book incited me and got into my psyche, refusing to leave, thus I read it in a single sitting. It's well written with precisely the right amount of drive, and the characters were interesting, though mainly abhorrent, including Sadie's friends and the majority of the police. The detective in charge of the investigation, DI Fleet, with his personal problems, was the only one that I considered affable. As most of the cast were untrustworthy, there were suspects galore as I switched my opinions over the course of the novel. The backdrop of the woodland created a chilling and claustrophobic atmosphere which enhanced the story and added another level of suspense. As this twisty, sinister and compulsive thriller headed towards the startling conclusion, the tension really escalated and I was caught off guard. A must-read for thriller afficionados.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Penguin Books/ Viking via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

A tense and pacey chiller thriller. 16-year-old Sadie Saunders had gone missing, with a race against time to find her. A clever and compelling novel that will you gripped until the final page.

Not having read anything by this author before I wasn’t sure what to expect but I really enjoyed this creepy psychological thriller. There were plenty of twists and turns to keep me gripped throughout. I look forward to reading more from this author. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Sadie has gone missing so her friends decide to set up their own search party and go after her but is finding her really what they're out to do. Soon things go downhill and someone ends up dead but just what happened to the friends and where is Sadie.

What a dark and twisted thriller this was. The story is told by the friends and the detective investigating the case. It jumps from present to the past week adding further depth to the story. The plot is steady and you're never quite sure who did what. I did however guess the very last twist but thought it was well done abd really ended the story right. The ending was good and I especially liked how things ended for the detective as it fitted with his character better. A brilliant thriller.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this early read.
I looked forward to reading this as it was described as a psychological thriller which I enjoy.
However, I struggled with this at first, but perservered and then I couldn't read the second half fast enough ... I was gripped.
Thus was my first time reading anything by this author and I will definitely look out for more.

I loved this! At first I wasn’t too sure as I felt like the story was changing viewpoint too quickly (however I think that was due to the formatting on my kindle) but once I’d got started I just needed to keep reading and find out what happened. I was kept guessing until the end and there was some very clever writing in this throwing me off the scent too! Would definitely recommend

If you go down to the woods today...you’re in for a nasty surprise.
Sadie Saunders, age 16, is missing from her home in a small south coastal town, now the subject of an intensive police search. The search is headed by DI Robin Fleet, who has a personal connection to the town, ably assisted by DS Nicky Collins. Despite the search covering acres of forest, days after her disappearance the police are none the wiser as to Sadie’s whereabouts. Frustrated by the police lack of progress, Sadie’s group of friends comprising twin brother Luke, boyfriend Mason, Abi, Cora and Fash, decide to form their own search party in the hope that their friend is still found alive. With the clock ticking, and certain clues hinting at what may have befallen Sadie, I was gripped by the storyline that seeks to constantly mislead the reader and will have devastating consequences for one family.
The focus of the investigation is very much centred around this group of young friends, who immediately come under the scrutiny of Fleet and his team. Are they an innocent group of friends or potential suspects , with fingers pointing at one individual in particular. Told from multiple points of view, the timeframe weaves between the present day investigation and the events that take place during this ill advised and impromptu search as explained through the eyes of the five friends. Instead of the usual police/suspect type interviews the reader only hears the voice of the interviewee as they relay their version of events which is a welcome departure from the norm. Can we trust these versions of events or are they all being economical with the truth? My slight criticism is that the narrative does tend to segue without warning into a different timeframe throughout which I found slightly confusing.

As is the case with many fictional detectives, DI Fleet is yet another complex character with a past that haunts him. His complicated relationship with this town is apparent the further you become immersed in the storyline, providing other inhabitants with the necessary stick to beat him with. Are Fleet’s personal circumstances and history with the place going to be in direct conflict with way he approaches this investigation? Fleet is also at odds with his superior, Roger Burton which also threatens to interfere with proceedings. Coupled with his separation from wife Holly, he cuts a sad lonely figure and if I’m brutally honest I’m becoming bored of this particular kind of characterisation so common in police led thrillers. With Fleet’s tendency towards self flagellation and governed by a desire to save as many lost souls as he can he bears the weight of the past on his shoulders. You would have to have an ice cold heart not to feel pity towards the man.

All the characters are in some way trying to live up to standards imposed on them by others. In terms of these adolescents they are all affected by the demands of their families. It prompted me to consider our roles as parents and how we can all be guilty, subconsciously or not of placing our offspring under undue pressure, projecting our own hopes and dreams onto the next generation hoping they will succeed where we have failed. Their lack of maturity and underdeveloped reasoning accounts for much of the drama that unfolds with the original cohesiveness of the group dissolving, thereby adding further intrigue. Whether or not their friendships survive this ordeal remains to be seen.

With much of the events taking place within wooded areas, cut off from the safety of the small coastal town, the setting is an ideal location for a thriller. The intense heat of the summer, the isolation, the lack of provisions making the friends ill prepared for their search are all elements contributing to a foreboding,chilling atmosphere. Given that some of the drama plays out under the cover of darkness,enhancing the overall eerie atmosphere, I found the storyline tense and terrifying. There’s no way I’d embark on a mission like this one! Plus the smallness of this fading, nondescript town where nothing ever happens and there is an over abundance of ice cream vans (!) heightens the sense of futility and hopelessness pervading the storyline. The fact this town has witnessed tragedy before made me question whether Sadie’s disappearance was history repeating itself.

There’s no escaping the fact this is a very cleverly constructed plot that had me flummoxed. At one point after reading a telling statement made by DI Fleet I thought I’d got the measure of this plot. There’s always a degree of satisfaction if as a reader you feel you’ve ‘outsmarted’ the author but it’s owing to his skill as a writer that in the end I was barking up the wrong tree (pun intended!) All that remained was a faint inkling that my detective skills were vaguely heading in the right direction but I couldn’t anticipate all the surprise turns along the way, some of which are quite shocking. Full credit to the author’s ability to engineer the denouement effortlessly,with the tension never wavering.

The Search Party is a thriller that is full of drama and suspense but imbued overall with a sense of sadness and futility on the part of the youngsters involved and DI Fleet too. The weight of expectation, failure and disappointment hangs heavy in the air and if you’re looking for a sting in the tale then it surely has to be the effects of undue pressure and ideas of perfection placed upon ourselves and others. The consequences can be devastating as you will surely discover if my review has encouraged you to make this book your next read. The narrative also speaks volumes about living within the confines of a small community and the need for some to escape the stifling atmosphere. I enjoyed it immensely.
My thanks as always to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read.

Better than I thought but not as good as I'd hoped for, The Search Party is a run of the mill thriller with a few creepy overtones and some small twists throughout. It took me a little while to get into the interview style format of the book but after a couple of chapters, it's easy to fall in step with the pace. I'd say it's worth picking up if you're looking for a teen-centred thriller that you can chip away at over a few days. 3.5 stars.

Sadie Saunders is missing. The entire town assumes she must be dead, and they think they know who did it. Her five closest friends form a search party to find her, but they’re suspects too, and not all of them will make it back home.

The Search Party is quite a roller-coaster ride. It has a LOT of twists that I really didn’t see coming. It’s exciting and pretty action-packed, and I particularly liked the detective, Robin Fleet.

The narrative style was interesting, with chapters alternating between police interviews with the teens from the search party, telling their side of the story, and present events following Fleet as he conducts his investigation. The down side to this method of story telling is that it gave the book a very YA feel, which I’m not sure was intentional and I didn’t think it really suited the story. It didn’t mesh well with the more adult side of the investigation.

If you’re looking for something twisty and unpredictable, this is a solid choice. The Search Party was captivating and really quite tragic, but if you’re after something with a more adult vibe, keep searching.

I'm a big fan of Simon Lelic's novels and, from previous experience, I knew to expect atmosphere and twists - both of which were served up by the bucketload in this intriguing novel!

The plot starts with a real bang: a transcript of an emergency call, where someone is in trouble in the woods, but the chaotic nature of the call means we don't know what is happening or who exactly is involved...

We then follow Detective Fleet, who is investigating the disappearance of teenager Sadie, and the subsequent havoc which ensued after a group of Sadie's friends decided to launch their own 'search party' in the woods. The story flicks between the present day investigation and the stories told to police by the teenagers themselves. In doing this, we get an insight into the teenager's thoughts and feelings.

I have to say, I found the young people in this novel pretty annoying! Perhaps I'm just a bit old, but a lot of what they said and how they behaved reminded me why I don't often read stories about young adults... This isn't to diminish the story, however - I think it just highlights the typical social interaction and dimensions of a group of teenagers vs. a group of adults, and adds to the confusion when Fleet is trying to work out motives etc. Plus the fact that they just decided the police weren't doing a good enough job at investigating Sadie's disappearance, and thought they could do better, feels so typical of teenagers!

I really liked Fleet - he is a great character with enough back story to keep the reader interested, but without being too dramatic or over the top. He is determined and feels reliable.

There's plenty of atmosphere throughout this novel, particularly as the group of teenagers go further and further into the woods, and things start to get a bit strange... I loved the sense of menace that Simon Lelic creates. I'm not sure if it can beat his other two novels, which blew me away, but I'd definitely recommend The Search Party as an intriguing, entertaining read!

When Sadie goes missing her friends rally to go into the woods and search for her - but does one of them know the truth about what happened?

The Search Party is an interesting and well-paced whodunnit in an atmospheric setting. Each of the characters have something to hide which is typical of Simon Lelic’s style of writing. We got chapters from the perspective of DI Fleet and then also stream of consciousness interview transcripts from each of the teenagers in the search party themselves. This made for good pacing but did get annoying at times and I must admit that a lot of the narrative voices did sound very similar which was a shame as the characters themselves were so different from each other.

DI Fleet is a very interesting and complex character but I did feel a bit like we had been thrown into book 6 of the DI Fleet series without really knowing all the details at times. Not much work was done to introduce us to him as a reader and some of his major motivation points, such as his missing sister didn’t really get explained until right near the end which was frustrating but also left you lacking much needed empathy for him as a character.

I really liked the setting of the woods which made for a really atmospheric backdrop to all the tension and lies that were going on around the characters. I did find the idea of each character having so many big secrets a little convenient though and I had guessed a big part of the plot very early on as well which didn’t help. There was also a formatting issue on the ARC edition on my Kindle where it leapt perspectives without any formatting change which was a bit jarring but hopefully they’ve sorted that out for release.

Overall The Search Party is an atmospheric thriller but I felt a little more exposition would have been nice to introduce us to DI Fleet and the plot felt a little too convenient at times. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books UK – Viking for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What are the elements of the perfect thriller? Suspense, strong characters, an intriguing plot and, of course, a twist you didn't see coming. Well, Simon Lelic's latest novel, THE SEARCH PARTY, has all those elements by the spade-load!

16-year-old Sadie Saunders is missing.
Five friends set out into the woods to find her.
But they're not just friends...
THEY'RE SUSPECTS.
You see, this was never a search party.
It's a witch hunt.
And not everyone will make it home alive...

Aren't you sold already? But not only that, the novel is alive with Lelic's strong writing craft, building the tension and suspense until you can't help but keep reading – even when it's way past your bedtime. Lelic has done a fantastic job on the characters as well, bringing the teenagers to life through their own perspectives, each distinct and unnerving in their own way. All of this contributing to a plot that twists, turns and bloody delivers

Is THE SEARCH PARTY on your To-Be-Read list yet? No? Well it should be. Crime and thriller fans – take note. This is your homework. Go read it, now.
.

Oh WOW! I could not stop reading! I suspended all other activity whilst I read The Search Party, racing to try and get ahead of Detective Inspector Robin Fleet and his DS, Nicky Collins. I didn't stand a chance!
Three quarters of the way through I thought I knew exactly what had happened but I was so wrong!
This book made me feverish, gobbling up the words. The dialogue, the tension between the DI and the Superintendent, especially the brilliant way the interviews were written without there being direct speech, all the ebb and flow of suspicion across the group of 16 year old friends and the terribly sad back story to Fleet's childhood and his current failing marriage, ALL came together to build a tense, exciting and extremely readable thriller.
Some of what I have mentioned could lead the reader to think that this is a book following a truly well and tested (and tired?) formula, and whilst it might not be earth shatteringly unique, I found the flow of the story to be engaging, the unnamed town it was all playing out in (a seaside town somewhere on the South Coast) added to the unease and the focus on the teenagers rather than parental fear and grief to be refreshing. The parents are barely involved in any direct way but indirectly, for the teenagers, as well as for Fleet, the influence of parents, their actions, and the young people's own perspectives have a huge impact on what happens and what type of police officer Fleet is.
I felt emotionally moved by the different lives the teenagers led and could really sense the 'small-town-ness', the ailing and poor neighbourhoods, the insular nature of growing up there and the pitfalls of a community desperate for someone, anyone, to blame, making me feel claustrophobic and worried for the teenagers' futures. The location seemed bleak and peeling, rusted and way past its prime, like a long forgotten and discarded item, once used, once needed, but now consigned to grey nothingness. And yet the place is clearly thrust into the limelight from the intrusion of police searching and journalists hunting down an exclusive. And it is also a place that is very important to Fleet.
This isn't a book that left me feeling satisfied or hopeful though. It is desperate and sad and I found the ending made me want to cry. It is a clever way to end the book as it certainly has more impact and increases the odds of the reader not forgetting the characters and the plot.
I was caught up in the drama just as a reader wants to be, carried away from what is really happening and transported somewhere else, never to be visited, only to be imagined.
I wanted so much more for Fleet but in the end I guess there were at least two people on the bench and not one. (Cryptic I know, but now you'll have to read the book to find out what I mean!)
Thank you to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this great thriller/police procedural in exchange for this, my honest review.
A highly recommended read and worthy of all 5 stars!

This book didn’t get off to a great start for me it felt very choppy and I just couldn’t get into it. I really liked another book I read by this author so wouldn’t be put off from reading his work again but this one just wasn’t for me

Oh my!! This was a book filled with darkened lanes where the suspense was hidden in the shadows, ready to pounce when least expected. Author Simon Lelic wrote a book on friendship, quite a twisted one at that, which made it all exciting, especially in the last 30%

Sadie had disappeared. Nobody knew if she were dead or run away. Her 5 best friends went in search of her to their favorite place in the woods. One 4 came back, absolutely shell-shocked and in hysterics. There was a corpse in the forest.

My second book by the author, I spent the first two thirds of the book wondering whom to believe. The teens were like icebergs, there was more to them than what they revealed. Each with their contrary, conflicting personalities, raging hormones and different levels of confidence, the author added to the confusion where each had a secret to hide.

The woods added to the atmosphere of the book as the darkness and lack of food and water made the teens wary. Their masks fell away in the face of their fear. And all that remained was the blatant truth which they no longer could escape from.

The plot had a myriad of added nuances. I couldn't help but feel sympathy for the kids. The one beacon of sunshine was the cop Robin whose bloodhound nose managed to ferret out the truth. But was it too late for the kids? Read the book to find out. I bet it would leave you gasping.

My Sunday breakfast read!!

Thank you to NetGalley for offering me a copy of this novel, in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes a formulaic crime novel- that works!- is just what the doctor ordered. There is nothing like a page turner thriller to get you out of a reading slump, to help you while the hours away during a lazy holiday, to take your mind off any worries, to carry you along with no effort. Simon Lelic’s ‘The search party’ just came out a few days ago, and I decided to give it a go.

Without being able to give it any superlative adjectives- amazing! spectacular! gripping!- this ticks all the boxes, nevertheless.

Tough, weather-beaten, rugged detective with a back story? Tick.

A crime (a missing teenage girl, in this case) that isn’t what the it says on the box? Tick.

A second detective that serves as Watson to the detective’s Sherlock- of the opposite sex, as the formula goes (when will we see a gay detective might-be ‘couple’, I wonder?). Tick.

A large group of secondary characters who are interesting to learn about and who deliberately confuse the reader as to ‘whodunnit’? Tick. (In this case, the group of secondary characters are teenagers, looking together for their missing friend, Sadie. They too, like Sadie and like the detective, have a back story).

I liked rather than loved this, but that’s how I mostly feel with crime novels. And that’s not a problem: crime novels don’t have to be fantastic to satisfy me. As I said, they are sometimes exactly what I need. On the rare occasion when I LOVE a crime novel, I appreciate that as one of the few undiluted pleasures in life! So: as to ‘The search party: I can happily recommend this for a quick, escapist read if you’re in the mood.

I really enjoyed this. The narrative was a bit confusing at times but the story gripping. I was not expecting the ending and thought the author led into it really well. A sad tale, especially the outcome. What a sorry mix of young people - showing how different family backgrounds and parenting can affect lives and personal ties. The usual relationships in a group of 16 year olds ending up with a sinister twist. And behind all, DI Fleet's sad history of a similar story when he was young. #TheSearchParty #netgalley

Sorry I have been able to get to this book yet, but unfortunately due to this years troubling events my reading mojo has deserted me. Once it returns I will certainly be reading this book and updating my review.

The premise of this book really attracted me but it took on quite a YA theme, which isn't a bad thing, but not something I expected. I enjoyed reading the book and got through it quite quickly but I found the teens POV's frustrating to read. I think these sections would have been better documented as an interview rather than a monologue! I wasn't shocked or surprised by the twists in this book, which was a little disappointing but I think this would make a brilliant netflix series!