A superb story centred around two 18 year old girls holidaying in Thailand. The main character is a journalist, Kate Waters, who becomes personally involved in the case (no spoilers from me!). The author painted a lovely picture of Kate with superb dialogue and her interactions with other well rounded characters either as a reporter - with the families or a parent - with the police. This book had plenty of twists, with a particular sad one near the end.

I cannot give it the book 5 stars as I lost my 'flow' sometimes with the switching of characters every chapter.

The book may have put off some parents letting their children go to places similar to Thailand. Also, I wonder if Ms Barton has had a letter of complaint from the Thailand police?

Two young girls go missing in Thailand, and reporter Kate tries to find them. This is such a good story I couldn't put it down. I literally didn't have a clue what might happen next. It's such a good read.

Another superb book, following from The Widow and The Child. Same characters, sensitively portrayed, and a story which will fill the hearts of gap-year students with fear. Just loved it.

18 year old Alex had been looking forward to her gap year in Thailand with her friend Mags. At the last minute Mags drops out due to lack of funds. Then Rosie, someone Alex knew but wasn’t particularly friendly with stepped in. Off they go on their adventures.

Kate Waters is a senior reporter with The Post. Married with two sons, she has grave concerns about her eldest son, Jake (the superstar that could do no wrong) who dropped out of Uni and disappeared to Thailand to find himself. He has been gone for two years and rarely gets in contact. Kate becomes involved in the story about the missing girls in Thailand and easily builds a relationship with the parents - after all, she is living their nightmare.

The plot unfolds through Kate’s point of view, her contact in the police, and the parents of the girls. This is interspersed with emails that Kate sends home to her should-be travelling companion, Mags. A well-thought out plot, with plenty of twists to keep you guessing; enough bungling by the Thai police and bureaucracy to frustrate you and a major surprise. Great characters, thrilling book with an authentic feel of Bangkok. Can’t fault it and certainly recommend it.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

I have read Fiona Barton’s novels before and the fact that this was yet another brilliant read came as no surprise.

Alex and Rosie, who have just finished their ‘A’ levels, go off to Thailand for what Alex has planned a mainly cultural trip. Her original travelling companion, Mags, pulled out at short notice and Alex doesn’t know Rosie as well, in fact as it turns out, not very well at all.

The teenagers go missing and Alex’s mum contacts a journalist, Kate Waters, as well as the police, including Bob Sparkes who is having his own personal issues. Kate and Bob have been in contact before and there is mutual respect between them.

When the bodies of two females are found in what the local police call an accident Kate flies out with her newspaper to unravel the story. She finds out much more than she had planned.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK and Fiona Barton for my ARC of ‘The Suspect’ in return for my honest review.

Excellent Read. Highly recommended.

Thank you to Netgalley, Fiona Barton and Random House UK for my arc of The Suspect.
The problem for me when I read Fiona Barton's novels is that I just cannot put them down. So starting this one at 10:30 at night was a bad idea. I finished it at 2am this morning and the way I feel today puts a new meaning on 'book hangover'.
As usual, the book is written in chapters which switch perspective. Here we have 4.

Alex has just finished her A levels and is looking forward to a year off to travel the world, starting in Thailand. Even though her best friend Mags has dropped out last minute, an acquaintance; Rosie has agreed to join her, they've never really seen eye to eye but this is the holiday of a lifetime so at least she still gets to go.

Lesley is Alex's mum, when the girls go missing and fail to contact their parents to get their A level results she's determined to find them. She enlists the help of...

Kate Waters, the journalist at the centre of each of Fiona's novels. Kate is keen to help but this one feels a little close to home what with her own son having jetted off to Thailand two years ago, failing to regularly keep in touch.

Finally, we have Bob Sparkes, the detective who has always helped Kate in the past. But this time he has his own personal issues to deal with too.

It's hard to say more without giving anything away. Fiona gently leads the reader in one direction before fiercely changing direction and pace and making you question everyone's motives. There were definitely a good few shocks, some twists I worked out (albeit quite close to when they happened) while others were completely unexpected. I felt so much compassion for what everyone in the story was going through, while frustrated with some of them for the bad life choices they were making.

Sade to say this novel gripped me so completely that I was unable to put it down, despite my desperate need for sleep! I can't wait for the next one!

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I have liked everything this author has written and this was up there with one of the best. Highly recommend.

I got into this book pretty quickly, it's enticing from the off, which is always good. It's a great story, and I've read all books by this author so far and they're all great, including this one.

My main reason for giving only 3 stars was because I found I wasn't getting into it enough to pick it up. I was reading it at bed times, but only because that's my routine. I didn't find myself picking it up throughout the day, as with some other stories I've read.

However, i really enjoyed Alex's parts in the stories and her emails, she was the only character I really connected with. I do recommend this book, the rating is purely based on some of my preferences, and how slowly I got through it.

The Suspect by Fiona Barton sees the return of Kate Waters, journalist. In my opinion, this is the best of the series so far. This book had my absolutely hooked and always wanted more. I found the story to be original and not at all predictable unlike some of the books I have read recently. Told in alternate perspectives the story builds, and twists, keeping the reader guessing all the way. Fantastic book!

Kate comes across the story of 2 18 year old girls who have gone missing on their gap year travelling in Thailand. She is desperate to help the families, especially as her own teenage son has been gone for 2 years travelling with very little contact. When the girls fail to call to hear their exam results things ramp up in the police investigation and the story. We learn the girls story through emails that Alex has sent home to her BFF. This story is remarkably different to the wonderful story that has been shared on social media. When events take a turn for the worst the truth starts to come out, and becomes personal for many involved.

An absolute pleasure to read and review this book. Big thank you to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, Bantam Press and Netgalley for my advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own and are in no way biased.

Although I have given each of the three books in this series the same star rating, I have noticed that both the quality of writing and my level of enjoyment has increased as the series has gone on. At this rate, the next one should reach the heights of all the stars! This one is really 4.5 stars but I'm not quite there rounding it up to the full count.
Told from the perspective of three people; the mother, the reporter and the detective, and with addition narration from one of the girls, the story is centred around the disappearance of Alex and Rosie, two girls who are holidaying in Thailand between A-Levels and university. Having not heard from them for a while, Lesley, Alex's mother becomes increasingly worried when a pre-arranged call to get exam results does not happen. We then follow Kate Waters as she features the girls in an article and DI Bob Sparks as he tries to cut through the Thai red tape to figure out what happened to the girls. Kate gets more than she bargained for however as her own son, who is in Thailand himself, taking a break from uni, becomes embroiled in the investigation and things take a nasty turn when there's a fire with fatal consequences.
One of the things I enjoyed about this book was the timeline. Usually I like my books either to be linear or, if in multiple timelines, I like them to be set far away from each other. The two timelines in this book occur close together with the Thailand parts set only a few months prior to the present day action. But this works really well as the information gleaned from the past fits perfectly with what is happening in the now.
Normally I don't like books where the main character's family get involved in the story being told but again, here it really works as it allows us to see a different side to Kate's character when she herself becomes part of the story that she started off investigating, and gets to experience the other side of things personally; especially losing the trust she had worked so hard to gain.
I found the story of the girls' trip to Thailand to be very credible which also made it a bit scary. How things spiralled out of control as the truth started to come to light. Especially when that truth was compared with the fabrication spun on-line in an attempt not to lose face and the consequence of having done that. Another pertinent lesson to be learned there.
The parents' story was equally harrowing and very well described. The angst they were feeling was literally dripping off the page as they tried to find out what was happening. The suspense starts to build up from the start and doesn't let up until the very end even given some of the things that transpire in between which resolve certain elements. I do have to admit to guessing something quite key at the end, gleaned from something quite innocuous, but the handling of the fallout from that did leave me reeling somewhat. Cryptic I know but, you know... spoilers!
All in all, it's a tragic story, steeped in realism which makes it all the more scary, it's every parents nightmare situation, and I include Kate in that statement, and a story that will stay with me for a while, it is so well written. I really can't wait to see what Ms Barton serves up next time.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Having read the author’s previous novels I was really excited for this one. Whilst not as good as hefcforetcteo, I did enjoy this. Being a parent I really felt empathy for the characters.

Having read Fiona Barton's previous novels I was excited to be approved to read The Suspect. The plotting is excellent and the twist a clever one.

Two 18 year old girls at the start of their gap year travels go missing in Bangkok, their bodies found a few days later apparently having died in a fire. All is not what it seems and journalist Kate Waters finds that she has a personal connection to the deaths. I highly recommend this book although parents of gap year kids may need a warning!

Many thanks to RandomHouse/Transworld/BantamPress and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review The Suspect. It's sure to be a huge success.

Brilliant read, I loved this book. It's my first time reading anything by this author and I will be looking for more books by her. I would like to thank the publishers and netgalley for letting me have the book to review.

The Suspect is a gripping, brilliantly crafted novel that is just as addictive as her other novels, which I’ve also loved.

You definitely don’t need to read this series in order but, having read the first two, I feel like I’ve got a good understanding of the characters including Kate and Bob Sparkes, making what happens in this novel even more emotive (no spoilers here though!).

I always love an element of mystery, especially combined with travel, and so I particularly enjoyed reading about Thailand, which made up a good chunk of the story and is a country I’ve visited before and loved. Therefore it brought back memories but my trip was (thankfully) very different to the two girls’.

The story jumps back and forwards in time, with various perspectives included, such as the parents of Alex and Rosie, the reporter Kate, and the police too. I find this kind of structure really interesting and I got completely hooked on the story. There’s plenty of grit and darkness to the plot, as well as a complexity that isn’t too confusing but still very intriguing. Highly recommended (as well as the rest of the series!)

I had been a big fan of Fiona Barton's previous two novels The Widow and The Child so I was looking forward to reading The Suspect. Rosie and Alex are backpacking in Thailand and after their parents report them missing, their bodies are found. A reporter goes out to Thailand to investigate and discovers that her own son might be wrapped up in the incident as he was travelling in Phuket.

I found that I really struggled with keeping focus on this book. I'm normally a quick reader but it took me a while to get through it and I found it a bit of a slog. The characters didn't really draw me in and I was disinterested in what happened to them. It's not badly written and is an easy read but I didn't really enjoy it.

I was really looking forward to reading the Suspect, thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy. We are back with the familiar characters from Fiona Barton, Kate the reporter and Bob the detective as their lives cross in another case. This time though it's personal to Kate.
Kate's son is travelling in Bangkok, but he hasn't been in touch for a while and Kate is worried. When two girls Alex and Rosie go missing in Bangkok, Kate picks up the story and flies out to find the girls.
Alex and Rosie are found dead and the story starts to be told.
The book is told from a few different perspectives, Kates, Bob'a and Alex's. I enjoyed the way the story was told and the information was useful and easy to follow despite flicking back and forwards in time a little.
The Suspect didn't grip me as much as Fiona Barton's previous books, however I enjoyed the read and the twists and turns that arrived were well written.

A great tense read! Full of gripping moments and twists and turns.
The story was exciting to read and the characters were fleshed out well.

Fiona Barton is very good at writing intriguing, complex stories that will have you hooked from the first chapter. I enjoy the change in POV's and seeing the characters progress and evolve through the story is compelling. As i read i felt that the story was steadily building to some sort of big finish. It built and built but it never reached that ending and i felt rather let down at how it ended. I'd hoped it would go out with a bang as opposed to a whimper. Perhaps Barton had intended the final twist to be the bang but i saw it coming a mile off. The Suspect is definitely worth reading but i was hoping for more.

I read this novel in two sittings and less that 24 hours. It was unputdownable, really fun to read, and kept me guessing at every turn. I really empathised with Kate and the parents, found the story believable and well-paced, and the characters were well-developed. It took me a bit to get into the flow of each chapter but I ended up really enjoying the structure of this novel. The story was really interesting and I can totally see this being turned into a movie! *Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this and to the author for the pleasure of digging into this novel. I will review on Amazon as soon as it is launched. Thanks again!"

The Suspect by Fiona Barton is a thriller with quite a few twist and turns.
When two girls on their gap year go missing in Thailand, Kate a reporter starts looking into this. Her son is in Thailand and she sees this case as a way of reconnecting with him. When the girls bodies are found in suspicious circumstances Kate's son is one of the suspects.
This is the third book I have read by this author and I have enjoyed them all and I am looking forward to her next book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.