Stevie‘s review of Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton
Psychological Thriller published by Berkley 14 Jun 22
I’ve read and greatly enjoyed two out of three of Fiona Barton’s Kate Waters books (I still need to find and read the first in the series), so I was keen to meet her new protagonist. Detective Inspector Elise King is on enforced medical leave following treatment for breast cancer but finds herself drawn into mysterious events taking place around a divisive music festival held in the seaside town to which she recently moved, following the break-up of her long-term relationship with her colleague Hugh. Hugh has been on secondment to another police force since leaving Elise for another woman, but now he’s back and heading up the team looking for Elise’s missing neighbour.
Also on the team, fortunately for Elise, is another colleague, Detective Sergeant Caro Brennan, a good friend who is fiercely loyal to Elise, even when working for Hugh. As the case complexity increases, Elise is brought back on duty early and is able to put her newly acquired local knowledge to good use finding out who killed Charlie Perry, why he was killed, and where he was hidden between being reported missing and being found dead. There’s no shortage of suspects. Charlie and his second wife have been employing local tradespeople to renovate their derelict mansion and have left multiple bills unpaid. Bills are also mounting up at the expensive care home, where Charlie’s daughter has been a resident since suffering a severe brain injury during a burglary at Charlie’s former home, and then there’s the matter of Charlie’s previous identity, which was shed when he moved down to the coast from London.
Charlie’s wife claims to know nothing about his enemies, but the couple share a cleaner with Elise, as well as with various other townsfolk with links to the case. Dee is nothing if not observant, but there’s a lot of baggage in her past that she isn’t planning to disclose to anyone on Elise’s Major Crimes team. Meanwhile, there is debate as to how the music festival, at which two teens overdosed, and where Charlie was last seen by multiple witnesses, is linked to the various goings-on in the town. Everyone has secrets, and it’s down to Elise to find out which are related to her case and which will turn out to be red herrings. As Elise digs deeper, she finds that unpaid bills were the least of Charlie’s misdeeds.
As with Barton’s previous books, I really enjoyed this twisty story. Elise feels very real, as do all those locals who have fallen victim to one or other of Charlie’s dodgy schemes, each with their own reasons for being tempted by his promises of easy money for only a ‘small’ initial investment’. As the story progressed, so did the list of Charlie’s misdeeds, but some of the witnesses are being economical with the truth – even those Elise regards as friends. I very much hope we get to see more of Elise. I’d like to see her at work when she’s back on duty for the whole of a case.
Grade: A
Summary:
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 weekend music festival, and two teenagers overdose on drugs. When a man disappears the first night of the festival, Elise 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.
Read an excerpt.
