Member Reviews
This is the first book in the series that I've read so now I'm thinking I've missed it and need to read the others. A gripping and fast paced story which kept my interest throughout.
Oh my, this is one creepy read as the whole community of a small village, have disappeared leaving everything personal behind. What is even more creepy is that it all happens on Halloween night. They had all gathered together for a meal in one of the homes, all close friends, then puff! all gone.
Two and a half years later the police are no closer to finding out if they are alive or dead. Whether they were abducted or all living someone else. The families of the missing people have had enough and call on David Raker to see if he can finally solve the mystery.
This is the tenth book in the Raker series but I have to say my first. This novel read really well to me as a stand alone. I really liked Raker straight away who gives out vibes that say he won’t be beaten. From reading this book I would say that every case becomes the air he breathes, something that consumes his life until he solves the case he is on.
There isn’t that mad rush in the writing, after all, what has happened is now a pretty cold case to solve because the nine peoples fate, that are missing, is already well and truly sealed. Raker can think out of the box where others seem to be like a gramophone needle stuck in the same groove. The whole story takes a sinister edge and moves into a much darker place.
This isn’t a look over your shoulder read it is one where I stood back, hesitated, made a drink and then stepped back into to unknown because I didn’t always want to know what really happened. Excellent Characters.
I wish to thank NetGalley for an e-copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly.
Wow! Thoroughly enjoyed this excellent psychological thriller. The characters were slowly revealed and I was intrigued by the story running concurrently but being told from the past and set in America. How were these two threads linked? How would it all come together?
The story was very cleverly brought to a conclusion - one which was more implied than described and when I reached the last paragraph, I wanted more. I wanted a page by page explanation of how it evolved and came together. I felt as if I had so many unanswered questions and wanting to know - what next? What happened in between the realization of their situation and the end of the story.
Just an absolute thrilling read. Would make an amazing film.
Absolutely loved it. Tim Weaver is a very good storyteller. I have enjoyed some of his other books, so I knew I would enjoy it. Fast paced and intriguing it might keep you up into the early hours reading it. Great book
The David Raker series has been recommended to me so many times, so I decided to give it a go with this new release – number 10 – whilst wondering if I’d feel like I was missing crucial details by coming new to the series at this late point. It turns out that, although I’m sure there were details I didn’t pick up on from not having read the previous 9 novels, they’re not essential to enjoy this brilliantly crafted, complex and intriguing novel.
No One Home has a real, persistent sense of threat throughout; I constantly felt a sense of eeriness as I turned the pages, and the novel’s plot – four households, which make up a tiny but whole village called Black Gale, disappear one night and David Raker is sent to investigate – is in itself a pretty strange and intriguing concept. Although this is a long book at over 500 pages, it doesn’t feel slow or overly long; I think this is in part because the plot is so layered and twisty, with surprises along the way and characters who are realistic and convincing.
I really liked Jo Kader, who we meet in a seperate narrative which is set in the 80’s, as a cop investigating a different case in a very male-dominated police force. She seems strong, intelligent and opinionated and comes across really well. Obviously David Raker takes pride of place in this story as the main protagonist, who is looking into the disappearance of the Black Gale households in the present day and seems to be a brilliant missing person investigator, but Jo’s character does a great job of holding my attention too.
The story moved at just the right pace to allow the reader to keep up with the various names, relationships, and plot developments, and although it was complex and very entertaining, it didn’t feel overly far-fetched. No One Home also leaves the reader with a very impactful ending that immediately made me want to read the next book – and, until that’s released, I now want to start right from the beginning of this brilliant series.
I liked the idea of this story but found it a little difficult to connect with the characters.
Plenty of twists and turns but at times I found it a little confusing, I didn't realise it was book 10 in a series and perhaps it would have been better to have read the others in order.
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest, independent review.
At Halloween, the entire village of Black Gale, nine people in total, go missing. There's no bodies, no evidence and no clues. A few years later, Missing Persons Investigator David Raker takes on the case. But as he starts to try to unravel the mystery, he finds it's not such a straightforward case, with clues leading him to another case of a missing student. At the same time, we see a cop, across two timelines, in the USA working on two unsolved case, with no idea how they will link in to David Raker's cases some years later.
I love the character of David Raker - he is likeable and genuine from the start. There were two timelines and two stories running parallel within the book - a little complex at times and I had no idea how everything would tie together, but it all came together nicely with a bang!
The only other book I have read in the David Raker series is #9, which until I started reading, I did not know was part of a series. However, I feel that both books I have now read in the series can easily be read as standalone books, rather than in the order of publication.
With both of the Raker books I've read, I have been unable to solve the cases myself as I read along, meaning I have been kept gripped until the end.
Yet another fantastic crime thriller! Everything you want in a crime thriller - fast-paced, twists and turns, and suspense. I found the book left me wanting more!
A great page turner with pace and tension that kept me turning the pages until the end. Thanks to NG and the publisher for the advance copy,
Another mystery in the David Raker missing persons series. Most unusual, imaginative story of a whole village,well all the nine people who live in it, missing. Two years later Raker takes over the case and gets involved with murders in America along the way.
I found the ending somewhat rushed and thought the author tied up loose ends rather rapidly;
that said its a great story, well told.
I loved the premise of this book – a whole village goes missing but there are no clues to suggest there has been a crime. However, I found the book slow, and - SPOILER ALERT – towards the end when noting is becoming any clearer, our main character finds someone who tells him exactly how the crime was committed, who was involved etc. Then the last chapter seems out of place as it is about characters needing rescuing, whereas in the preceding chapter they are already safely back home. I was disappointed at this book.
Author Tim Weaver's series of books featuring missing persons investigator David Raker, never fails to disappoint. No One Home is the 10th book and another sure-fire winner. I thought it was an excellent continuation of the series - immediately grabbing my attention with its promise of a mystery of epic proportions.
This time Raker's called in to investigate the disappearance of nine residents from Black Gale, an isolated village in the middle of nowhere. How can nine people simply vanish without trace? Ross Perry needs closure; it's time to solve the mystery of what happened to his parents and the other missing people.
The story skips back and forth between Raker's current investigation in the UK and events which took place in 1980s Los Angeles. It's only later in the book that the reader discovers how the timelines are linked. With superb characterisation and a suspenseful, gritty edge, this is easily one of my favourite books of 2019.
Wow this was fab!! You spend so much time questioning how 9 people can just vanish and this will leave you wanting so much more!
Amazon's Kindle e-book reader has a useful function called “X-Ray” ~ if you can't work out where a character fits in to the story, go to X-Ray and you'll find instantly where and how this or that person first came into the plot. Unfortunately, this book, even on Kindle, doesn't have X-Ray and, oh boy, didn't I miss it.
David Raker, ex-policeman turned specialist in finding missing people, is called in by relatives to trace the nine residents of an isolated village who simply disappeared en bloc in 2015. No signs of a struggle, no footprints or tyre tracks other than those of the people in the little hamlet. Just the remains of a happy and well-lubricated Hallowe'en party. Carefully and very thoroughly, Raker pieces together the lives of the missing couples with the help of their relatives, trying to find out whatever it was that led to the failure of repeated police enquiries.
Then, without warning or explanation, the story jumps to Los Angeles in 1985, where the sole woman detective in the police department is tracking down a particularly grisly murder while being given a hard time by her misogynistic colleagues. Before you have time to ask what's going on, you're back in the Yorkshire Dales, where the investigation turns nasty, thanks to a mysterious intruder, electronic bugs turning up in the houses, and a few more complications being thrown into the search. And we're off again, this time to an unidentified woman trapped in a windowless room.
Things become slightly clearer when Raker finds out that one of the missing people had been looking in to the death of a girl student in 1987 and the suicide of her boyfriend in 1989. Sorry, fooled you ~ the dead boyfriend turns up alive in Los Angeles and is interviewed by the woman detective. Back to the Dales before jumping off again, to a soliloquy by a woman called Martina. Keep up there, it will – eventually – work out.
Remember that intruder ? He seems hostile and violent towards Raker's quest, but he gives him a door key which throws some light on the missing people …. But I won't go on to outline the complicated denouement other than to say that a Dictaphone tape solves most of the puzzle only to open up a much greater tangle. Never mind, it all ends happily for everyone, apart from the few people for whom it ends very unhappily indeed.
I suppose this is what's called “airport literature” ~ well; if you buy it at the airport on the way out, you'll probably still be enjoying it on the return flight.
(Originally reviewed in the Chesil Magazine, Dorset)
I’ve never read a Tim Weaver book before and realised quite quickly that No Way Home is the 10th in a series of books about missing person investigator David Raker. I’m going to be honest, I generally dislike reading books that are midway through a series preferring to get to know a character and see them develop but something about No Way Home pulled me in. It can definitely be read as a standalone novel and I found myself being intrigued by Raker and wanted to know more about his backstory and if the rest of the books in the series are as good as No Way Home then I am in for a treat.
This is an entertaining and enthralling read about nine people who disappeared from a small village on Halloween. A small enclave of four houses make up Black Gale and the inhabitants found themselves the best of friends, socialising often and on the night in question having a party at one of the houses. Photos of the night are posted on social media with everybody in high spirits. When the son of one of the families can’t contact his parents he doesn’t immediately worry, it is only when the daughter of a neighbouring family calls to say her parents aren’t answering their phone that he begins to worry. Upon arrival at Black Gale he finds the hamlet abandoned, the houses pristine, the cars on the drives and the police find no evidence of foul play or of outside vehicles entering the area. So where are they?
No One Home is a Russian doll of a book, a mystery within a mystery within a mystery. I read a lot of crime and thriller books and one of the things I love most about the genre is trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. With No Way Home I had absolutely no clue what had happened and why. Even as the book progressed and the odd clue was dropped at my feet I still couldn’t work out where it fit in.
It is brilliantly plotted and paced with intrigue and suspense galore. Interspersed with Raker’s hunt for the Black Gale residents are chapters set in the mid 1980s concerning an American detective, Jo. She is the only female detective in the LA Police and has to work twice as hard as her male counterparts. I loved her chapters which are set during a heatwave in LA whilst the city is living in terror of a serial killer. My mind was spinning as I tried to work out where she fit in to Rakers hunt and I could feel the oppressive heat of west coast America lingering even as Raker explored a rainy village in Yorkshire.
I couldn’t put this book down, but also didn’t want it to end. It is an accomplished and sophisticated novel with exceptional characterisation and a cracking plot. I am thrilled to have discovered a new author of such a high calibre and if, like me, Tim Weaver is a new author to you I suggest you remedy that post-haste.
What a wonderful premise for a book, Nine people in a village vanish without trace on Halloween. David Raker is brought in several years later to try to unravel the mystery.
An excellent page turner that keeps the reader guessing.
I did not know when I read the book that it is part of a series featuring the lead character. It worked well as a stand-alone novel and I will be looking out for others in the series.
This intrigued me. How does a whole village go missing? Liked the different narrative between the detective in U.S.A and in the U.K. I guessed the ending and felt the story was implausible in places but I kept wanting to read on and found the novel atmospheric. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me review this book.
When I read the blurb for No One Home it sounded pretty fantastic for nine people, living in a four-household Yorkshire village, to disappear on Halloween leaving no clues behind. "How can that be?', I puzzled. This mystery hooked me and lead me down the path of another thriller series of which I had not read a single book previous. As this is book 10 in the David Raker series there was plenty of backstory unknown to me. Maybe not the best place to jump into the narrative stream but I did and am no worse for wear. It would have be good to go back a book to see what brought David to where he is at the start of this novel but it wasn't a deal breaker for me as the mystery unleashed its siren song...
Do you remember how I waxed lyrical over 18 Below by Stefan Ahnhem? This, though seemingly as unlikely as that, is just as engrossing, if not more so. I was recently on holiday in Cornwall and kept finding excuses to hide away with this book to make sense of it. I simply had to know what happened!
In No One Home David is brought the mystery of our 9 villagers by his compatriot Healey, who is, himself, a mystery worth reading about in the previous book. Whilst these chaps investigate the missing villagers we jump to Jo Kader in Los Angeles in 1985. Unexpected as it was hers was a very satisfying story being the only woman detective in the LA Sheriff's Department. The bridging of our two story lines was pure genius, excellent in execution. The 'Oooooooh, right. Now I get it' moment was a real revelation and made me page back numerous times to see if it panned out. A great time-jumping exercise that kept my brain fit. So much happened after the pieces fell into place - brilliantly stressful stuff - and the end... Wow! I didn't see that coming but am already salivating for the next novel. Thank you, Tim Weaver for a such a gripping beach read! I loved it.
Hi Karen,
My Next review is:-
“No One Home(David Raker Missing Persons)””, written by Tim Weaver and published in Hardback by Michael Joseph on 16th May 2019. 528 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0241370117
The tenth book in the series of missing persons books featuring David Raker opens with his most difficult task yet which is to locate a missing village of people!!
At Halloween, the residents of Black Gale gather for a dinner party. As the only nine people living there, they've become close friends as well as neighbours.
They eat, drink and laugh. They play games and take photographs. But those photographs will be the last record of any of them.
Because by the next morning, the whole village has vanished.
With no bodies, no evidence and no clues, the mystery of what happened at Black Gale remains unsolved two and a half years on. But then the families of the missing turn to investigator David Raker - and their obsession becomes his.
What secrets were the neighbours keeping from their families - and from each other?
Were they really everything they seemed to be?
Tim Weaver is a very experienced author and I have read a number of his books before for review and generally been very pleased with them but this one seemed to be just too long. Half way through my reading I just gave up and went away and read another book, but eventually I came back and persevered in reading this one despite it’s rather convoluted plot. I checked and was surprised that this one really wasn’t the longest that he has written. That was book 5 “Fall From Grace” which was 573 pages long but I see that his earliest books were under 450 pages which I think is a much more comfortable length so perhaps this writer needs to have his work edited a bit better in future..
Best wishes,
Terry
(to be published on eurocrime.co.uk and amazon.co.uk in due course)
didn't discover Tim Weaver's David Raker books until Book 8. I was hooked after that one & enjoyed book 9, so I was delighted to get my hands on Book 10.
In an isolated village called Black Gale live nine people. They all get on extremely well. One Halloween they got together for dinner party and vanished! Not a trace could be found of them. Eventually, despairing of getting answers, one of their relatives get in touch with David Raker. David finds missing people; with a chequered often tragic past it fills something missing in his own life.
The scene switches to the 1980's Los Angeles where a police officer struggles to make her mark in a misogynistic police department. Whilst everyone seems to be involved with a high profile case, she gets sent to investigate a body found in a bath of acid. It is said that there is always one unsolved case that lingers with every detective. This is Jo's & the story switches back to her throughout the story of Raker's search for the residents of Black Gale. The reader presumes there is a link between the stories.
This is a complex cleverly plotted story. It took me a lot longer that usual to read this one as I needed to make sure I wasn't missing important clues. I never got anywhere near solving the mystery but I was gripped to the last page.
Thanks to netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book- it was brilliant!
Apologies to fans of Tim Weaver but this is the first book I have read by him!! It certainly won't be my last. The fact that this is the 10th book in the series had no effect on my enjoyment of the story, just made me more interested to go back and read more by this author. The plot starts straight in with a visit to a 'ghost' village (not quite a village but ...) from which all 9 residents have disappeared on the same night - Halloween. From there the plot moves backwards and forwards as more characters become involved and the complications take us on a long and twisted journey. Very well written and cleverly set out. The way the sequence of events is presented adds to the tension.
Very many thanks to Netgalley/Tim Weaver/Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.