I thoroughly enjoyed this book which takes a trauma infused murder mystery, and views it through the lens of countryside gentrification.

What you have are small towns, and villages, overtaken by rich 'immigrants' on the weekends, who invade the local communities, bring their outsourced builders, contractors and so forth, wreck the local economy and go back home again on Monday.

In an environment like this, beyond the pebble sculptures and lighthouse shaped light pulls, there is  seething resentment in the seaside town of Ebbing which erupts when newcomer, Phil Diamond, decides to through a festival in the grounds of the mansion he has bought.

Facing stiff opposition from locals, especially Dave, the publican whose place is the community heart, over concerns that drugs and even more out of towners will swamp their home, their worst fears come true when 2 teens overdose(Dave's son being one of them) and a businessman goes missing.

Living a Alan Partridge-esque existence in a caravan on the grounds of the wrecked building which he has purchased to appease his 'trophy wife', the grotesque Pauline, Charlie Perry has more to worry about than just not being able to sexually satisfy his second wife. Brutally tortured in a home invasion , his daughter from his first marriage is safely ensconced within a luxury care home, brain damaged and blind, perpetually known as 'darling girl' even though she is approaching 40.

But with spiralling construction costs, care home fees, a profligate wife and debtors to satisfy, is anyone really that surprised when he goes missing?

Will the finger of suspicion point towards someone close to home, or someone from further afield, maybe someone from Charlie's past?

And what part will invisible cleaner Dee, the woman who does, have to play in the whole affair?

She is both local and not, cleaning for the home grown and the from away alike, desperately trying to bring in the money which keeps her family going. But often, those who clean up the messes that others leave behind, notice the things that others would overlook...

Into this missing person case steps Elise King, who has moved to Ebbing after splitting with her husband and is recovering from breast cancer as a single woman. Ably supported by the superb Ronnie, her next door neighbour who is in charge of morale boosting, she has a house which opens, literally, onto Ebbing high street. She sits in her window and sees, using her police training to note what others would not.

Dee and Elise find the threads of the mystery pulling them inexorably into the investigation, whether they want to or not, bound by discovery and also the moral imperative to search for the truth.

Dee, for the traumatised child that she once was, and the parent she now is, wanting to protect and keep safe her young son Calum.

Elise, trying to re-establish who she is as a woman, as a member of the police, as herself in her single status. And this is what is so interesting, to meet her as a wounded woman, recovering from a mastectomy, reassessing her identity and who she is in the masculine environs of the police force. And the way she gets pulled in to the details of both the local people and those interlopers is so fascinating-she straddles both sides and is accepted by both, seen as not really a threat because she is sick, she is off duty, but then finding attitudes change when she formally puts herself into the investigation when the lead detective drops out.

She asks of the reader what she asks of her boss-don't give up on me.

Elise and Caro, her police friend who has walked a different path to her, their experiences as women in the police force fighting the 'dyke or bike' culture was so well done, in a few scenes she briskly reveals the reality of being that career forward woman in a profession that regards you as passing time until babies come along, at best.

There is a dark vein of humour which underlines the narrative, Ronnie as Elise's sidekick and helper is fantastic, with her off the stage husband and his model railway, her comical plans to murder him just casually falling off her lips.

And Dee, the woman who people forget is even there half the time, who is looked down on because of her status, works so hard, is so family centered, that provides the counterpoint to Elise. Her history is bound up with this case more than any outsider realises, and it is the whole ''for the want of a nail' sequence of events which is just so sad, inevitable and tragic. The actions of one person create this whole, decades long situation which culminates in a missing person investigation as it pulls apart what it means to really come from a certain place.

I don't have more to say than this-if you liked her other books, you will love Local Gone Missing. If you haven't read any of Fiona Barton's novels, well what are you waiting for?!

I thoroughly e noted this book, lots of back stories going on, different perspectives and time points along the way. Charlie goes missing but is everything as it seems to be?
I was given an advanced copy by metallurgy for an honest review and would recommend this book

Elise King is recuperating at home after surgery but once a police detective always a detective as Elise soon discovers when she is inadvertently drawn into a complex mystery surrounding the disappearance of Charlie Perry, an elderly man from the pretty seaside village of Ebbing. Ebbing, once a close community, is now fractured by the arrival of weekenders who threaten the equilibrium of the place and yet, Dee Eastwood, a local cleaner, who straddles both worlds, gets to hear all sorts of things and is privy to secrets which are better not disclosed.

Local Gone Missing has all the trademarks of this author's fine writing skills with a cast of wonderful characters who really bring this complex plot to life. Moving forwards and backwards in time we get to know more about Charlie who seems to have been quite a character in his past, and as the reasons why he may have gone missing start to evolve so the plot gets tighter and tighter, with lots of spiraling twists, unexpected turns and more than enough red herrings to keep you guessing.

Fiona Barton is one of those authors who never fails to entertain with intricate plot twists which keep you guessing and Local Gone Missing is no exception. A really great read and wonderful escapism for a summer afternoon in the garden.

Charlie and Pauline Perry live in a caravan on the grounds of a dilapidated property that they don't have the means to renovate. Detective Elise King is on sick leave following surgery. Newcomers to the coastal town of Ebbing, Sussex, and second homeowners have ideas for promoting the area and one such plan is to have a music festival which raises some objections, however, the event goes ahead but Charlie vanishes. Will Elise call a halt to her time spent people-watching from her windows to find Charlie?

Told from different points in time and from a variety of viewpoints, this was a thoroughly enjoyable police procedural. With mingling story strands, I didn't guess the ending but I had a great time trying. Highly recommended.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel from Bantam Press via NetGalley at my request and this review is my own unbiased opinion.

I love books written by fiona Barton, she's an excellent writer and this book didn't disappoint. Lots of twists and turns so much I got myself in knots! Looking forward to the next book...keep up the great writing!!!

Ellie is a lead detective coming towards the end of her sick leave after her cancer diagnoses. She is looking forward to getting back to work but has some misgivings, but her colleague Caro is a big help to her. She has another assistant, her fiancé, Ronnie who isn’t a police officer but likes to act as amateur detective. Their friendship was quite special and enjoyable.

There were quite a lot of other characters throughout the book. Chalie who was obviously a crook from the start, duped many people of which any could be responsible for his death. Some of his victims evoked a lot of sympathy though others less, his daughter was the only person I didn’t think would be responsible. There are several other crimes, particularly around the festival. The suspicion and mistrust add to the hardships the characters are already facing but I didn’t find the crimes to be as hard-hitting as some other books ive read recently.

Not quite as spectacular as I had expected but the scenery sounded beautiful, set in a small fishing village but this was a little slow for me. A good atmosphere was created, and it all came together in the end but this wasn’t my favourite book of the month unfortunately.

Elise is the lead detective, coming towards the end of sick leave after a cancer diagnosis and looking forward to getting back to work. She does have misgivings, chemo brain is a concern but Caro her colleague is a big help without being patronising. She has another assistant, her friend Ronnie, who isn’t a police officer but sees herself as another Miss Marple. This friendship was one of my favourite parts of the novel.

There are quite a lot of other characters, some whose link you couldn’t see at first. The victim, Charlie, was obviously a crook from the start and it could have been any one of the people he duped who was responsible for his death. Some of them I had a lot of sympathy for, especially his daughter who was the only one who couldn’t have been responsible.

The murder isn’t the only crime, a festival where drugs nearly caused fatalities has also had a big impact on the area. The suspicion, gossip and mistrust affected many and added to the hardships already suffered. But both cases aren’t as gritty and hard hitting as most crime novels I read. Instead the novel seems to focus on personalities and rather than the crimes committed.

I would love to meet Elise and Caro again, I can definitely see this novel as part of a series.

5 stars for the setting!! I loved the feel of this little seaside fishing town! 4 stars for beginning slow and being a little hard to follow. A lot of small-town secrets and moving pieces that come together at the end. Not my favorite from this author but overall, a good story, well-drawn characters and as I mentioned, the atmosphere.

Thank you to #FionaBarton, #NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, Bantam Press for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

EXCERPT: The signature is a scrawl, but I know who it is. Now I want to know what they told each other. The painful things they dug up.

Leave it alone, Dee, I tell myself. It's ancient history. And Phil is dead.

But I know I won't. Can't. It's never over, is it? The past is always there, flickering like our old telly in a dark corner of my head. Most of the time, I can make myself blank it out, but little things - like a song that used to make me cry or the smell of cheap Chinese takeaways, our birthday treat - and it fizzes into focus. I've got a lot of bad memories - my childhood was one long nightmare, really. But this is different. Unfinished business; a time bomb ticking quietly like a second heart in my chest.

ABOUT 'LOCAL GONE MISSING': 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.

MY THOUGHTS: Local Gone Missing is fun. And it is the central core of characters - Ronnie (unabashedly nosey, and my absolute favourite), Elise the detective on sick leave, and Dee the cleaner of many of the homes belonging to people in the village, all-seeing, all-hearing and almost invisible - that are the stars. There are a lot of characters spread across the two timelines, 1999 and twenty years later, 2019, and they can get a little confusing. My advice is not to stress about it, just go with the flow. The author provides little prompts to help us remember.

The missing man is Charlie, a happy, charming and generous man with a disabled daughter in full time care. Everyone is shocked when he is reported missing by his ex-model wife, Pauline. Elise, bored but not yet ready to return to work, and her delightfully nosey neighbour Ronnie decide to investigate Charlie's disappearance to give themselves something to do.

Now I have to say that I enjoyed the first half of this book where Elise is still on leave and Ronnie is a prominent character infinitessimaly more than the second half, where Elise is officially investigating the disappearance and we don't see so much of Ronnie. I missed Ronnie's enthusiasm, her humour, her flashes of inspiration. She made me laugh, she made me wince. She's brash and brainy. I love her.

The mystery, which at first seems simple, soon becomes complex, as secrets are revealed and the true natures of the characters are revealed. My head spun. My grey cells whirred. Cogs ground. But I didn't have a clue. Lots of ideas, but none which stood up to the test of time in Barton's writing. I loved it.

An intriguing mystery, that I read in the course of one day. A read that left me smiling, satisfied, and hoping to meet these characters again.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.3

#LocalGoneMissing #NetGalley

I: #fionabartonauthor @penguinrandomhouseuk

T: @figbarton @penguinrandom @TransworldBooks @BantamPress

#contemporaryfiction #crime #detectivefiction #mystery #smalltownfiction

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. As a national newspaper journalist covering notorious crimes and trials, I found myself wondering what the families of those accused really knew – or allowed themselves to know.
My husband and I are 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, Sparky, crowing.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, Bantam Press via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system.

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

'Local Gone Missing' is set in a serene town in which people exist in harmony. Things start to go awry with the introduction of dr*gs in their society. The story timeline is divided into two - before and after Charlie's disappearance. There are a LOT of characters in the story and multiple POVs, which honestly became difficult to remember after some point.

The characters aren't exactly likeable, or deep (except the very few that felt like the main characters to me). There is a lot of confusion and hidden secrets that slowly get unraveled with the passing of time. The first 40-50% of the book was slow paced, and I found myself losing interest, but thankfully it gained some traction towards the second half of the book.

I liked how it ended and how everything came together like small jigsaw puzzle pieces coming together to create the whole clear picture. A good 3.5 star read for me :)

Elise King is a successful Detective, but she is currently on extended leave on her way to recovering from having surgery and treatment for breast cancer. She is wanting to return to work, but is also nervous of returning. Her mind still gets a little foggy which is an after effect of the treatments she has had, she is worried that she isn’t up to the job anymore because of this. She is living in a fictional,sleepy seaside town, known as Ebbing. Some of the locals hate the fact that people have second homes in the town and they just come and stay for the weekend then go back home again.
When local man Charlie Perry goes missing Elise along with a neighbour 60 year old Ronnie, who is bored because her husband has his own interests, which leaves her with a lot of time on her hands. The last time Charlie had been seen was at a music festival held in Ebbing, most of the locals hadn’t wanted the festival to go ahead. But what was Charlie doing there?

The first half of the book is a little bit slower than I usually like and there seemed to be quite a few characters Dee Eastwood is invisible when at work, she cleans houses, no one ever notices she’s there so she hears more conversations than her employers ever really realise. I enjoyed the first half when Elise and Ronnie are doing their bit of snooping trying to find out what they can. But the whole book picks up and the pace goes faster when Elise is called back to work a little bit faster than she expected. As she gets back in her stride

I really liked Elise and Ronnie the two of them together was fun. But getting the points of view of other characters such as Dee and Charlie was interesting as it gives the reader and idea as to how each of the characters connect. It also adds some depth to the characters themselves, makes them come alive, be relatable, adds some complexity.

There are quite a few characters with locals and visitors and as you read further, you find there are plenty of secrets and hidden connections. Just when you think you have worked one thing out you realise that you have been completely misdirected. The story jumps back and forth in time with lots of twists and turns to keep you guessing. The tension gradually builds with a conclusion that you just don’t see coming, at no point did I guess where this was going to end.

Despite the fact that there are a lot of characters to juggle, and the timeline jumping back and forth at no time, did I feel confused as to what was going on. This is a cleverly plotted story, with lots of juggling, I have no idea how Fiona Barton managed to keep all the characters stories in order but she did. Elise is a strong character, I am hoping that we may get to see some more of her and Ronnie in the future. A book about family, relationships, lies, anger, and community.

I would like to thank #netgalley and @RandomhouseUK for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest fair and unbiased review.

Unfortunately this book was a DNF for me at 30%, I would pick this up again in future but as a mood reader this book didn’t particularly hold my interest. I felt like I could anticipate the ending at 30pc and this is on me for me not picking it up again, not the author!

What a brilliant read! Honestly this book has so many layers which perhaps should have made the book quite difficult to follow but the author has expertly woven all the threads of the story together so well that every element and character plays it’s part perfectly and comes together at the end. Each character is brilliantly written, and believable, and plays their part big or small perfectly. I really loved the small town atmosphere and the mixture of cosy crime with proper crime thriller. This is definitely a recommended read.

Having read and loved Barton's previous books, I have been looking forward to this one and whilst a little different from her earlier books, it proved to be an intriguing read.

Ebbing is a relatively quiet seaside town, its only real issue being the growing divide between the locals and “weekenders” who are moving into the town in increasing numbers, but following a controversial music festival held in the town, a local man is missing and two teenagers are hospitalized having taken drugs. Detective Inspector Elise King, recently move to the town following the breakdown of her relationship, is on leave following treatment for cancer and a little bored, so when the opportunity arises for her to turn amateur sleuth with her friend and neighbour Ronnie she jumps at the chance, before being asked to return to work and try and find some answers, including whether the incidents are connected.

The book is told from multiple points of view and covers both the past leading up to the man’s disappearance and the search in the present. It is clear that Ebbing is town where many of the residents have secrets, none more so than the missing man, Charlie Perry. There is a lot going on in the story, and lots of characters to keep track of but I would totally say stick with it - gradually things start to fall into place as individual stories weave together and connections are revealed. Barton’s skill at characterization ensures that the cast of characters is brought to life, not least Elise who is certainly someone I would like to see more of – and the sense of place is very real as we learn more about small town life in Ebbing. With plenty of red herrings along the way, this is a book that keeps you guessing until all the strands come together in a surprising but well-worked ending.

Elise King lives in Ebbing a sleepy seaside town. She is a detective on sick leave, as the title of the book says a local has gone missing and Elise is drawn into the investigation.
The story moves on at a fair pace , the writing is of an excellent calibre.
I did find it a bit confusing at times , there are a lot of characters and it does move to and fro in time but the story is strong and it all comes together at the conclusion.
Overall an enjoyable read and I would like to see Elise King in future books.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK.

An excellent read,full of twists and turns. Great characters major and minor with a brilliant storyline.
Had me gripped from start to finish.
This writer knows how to ratch up the tension.

What's the book about?

What's the book about?

Detective Elise King investigates the disappearance of a man in the seaside town of Ebbing, amid tensions between residents and weekend visitors over a music festival intended to increase the town's popularity. The investigation comes with its own set of extra challenges. Ebbing is a small town with more secrets and hidden connections than Elise could have imagined.

My thoughts:

Not as engrossing a read as other Barton books but still a good page turner. Enjoyed the plot and the pace of the book.

Det Elise King is on medical leave from her job with the police. She is recuperating nicely but is a bit bored with the mundane everyday life in the seaside town where she lives. Watching locals clash with weekenders being pretty much all the sport she gets.
Until that is there's a weekend music festival, two teens overdose on drugs and a man disappears on the first night. Which pretty much lights up the town as well as her life. Teaming up with next-door neighbour (and godsend during her illness) Ronnie, Elise throws herself into the investigation. Well, slowly inveigles herself anyway!
With secrets and lies aplenty, served up with a healthy slice of duplicitous behaviour, this book is often a bit muddled. There is simply so much going on that, at times, I was a tad overwhelmed by it all. Wood for the trees and all that... There are a lot of characters to get to grips with, all with something to add but often that something is a bit insignificant and could be delivered by one of the others, doubling up and reducing the cast a bit.
The story itself is also a bit convoluted and interconnected with many threads all meandering around and abut each other, slowly intersecting and/or fizzling out until the main truth is finally revealed. A truth that I was powerless to try to guess early for all of the above reasons. But one which made sense and did flow from the start, albeit it mostly hidden in the noise.
I did enjoy the teaming up of Elise and Ronnie. So much so that I would love to hear more from them in the future. Sadly I fear the impossibility of this unless they both move as there surely can't be any more secrets left in Ebbing!
All in all, a solid read that did get there eventually and which left me mostly satisfied. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Twisting story of a confidence trickster and a tangled web. Parallel timelines add to the sense of uncertainty

DI Elise King is currently on sick leave after major surgery, but there is only so much resting that she can do! So when the opportunity to do a little bit of investigating presents itself when one of the locals in her small town goes missing, she jumps at the chance. It is always amazing how many secrets can be found in a small town.

With many characters and dual timelines, this one took a bit of concentrating! Luckily it started off quite slow giving a great opportunity to get to grips with the story and who was who, before building momentum and adding in some twists too. It did feel that some parts, and particularly some characters were not looked at too much, but I am hoping that we might see more from Elise and find out more about that back story in a sequel!