On Halloween night, four households gather for a party in the tiny Yorkshire village of Black Gale. Three hours in, they head outside, onto the darkened moors, to play a drunken game of hide and seek. None of them return. There's no trail, no evidence and no answers. An entire village has just vanished.

With the police investigation dead in the water, the families of the disappeared ask missing persons investigator David Raker to find out what happened. But nothing can prepare him for the truth.

This is another gripping thriller by Tim weaver. Full of intrigue and a clever plot. It had lots of twists and turns but, that didn’t stop Raker working out what happened, even though he has a lot of obstacles stacked against him. I’m not sure what else to say, an unpredictable tale, with an ending that has huge impact, powerfully emotional on every level. It’s actually no less than I’ve come to expect from this author but every single time he manages to floor me,

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin UK Michael Joseph for an advance copy in return for a fair and honest review.

Jolene Kader is a Los Angeles Police Officer assigned to investigate a murder case in the 1980's where the suspected murderer commits suicide. She is not convinced but as she is the only female officer surrounded by sexist, dominant male, colleagues the case is closed.
David Raker is a missing persons investigator hired to look into the disappearance of 9 people in a small.Yorkshire village two and a half years ago on Halloween that has left the police with no clues, no sightings and no.bodies.
How do these two cases on two separate continents link together decades later?
Such a brilliantly written book that had me intrigued from the first chapter. So many twists as the truth begins to slowly surface and the pace begins to pick up to a frantic, fantastic conclusion..
No need to worry if you haven't read the rest of the series, I haven't - yet! - as the book is a self contained story. A must read for crime thriller lovers.

I have read every Tim Weaver/David Raker PI books, and this is up there with the best of them. The synopsis had me sucked in when the neighbours disappeared on Halloween night and that was before I realised there was a parallel story going on which was set in LA in the 1980's! It was like reading two books in one and I loved both of them. They converged satisfyingly near the end of the book. As usual, reality needs to be suspended to comprehend some elements, but that's why I read fiction! Highly recommended. I think this would stand up if you haven't read any of the previous series too.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. What an enigma, how can 9 people just disappear overnight?
And how can David Raker find out just what happened after two and a half years have gone by?
I have read some earlier Raker books but not all so some of the back story was missing but nothing that spoiled this read - just some details missing that didn’t impact on this case.
This book was puzzling, entertaining and addictive reading. I really wanted to know what had happened. I had an inkling on one issue but most of it was gradually discovered as the story progressed.
I would have given 5 stars but not all questions were answered at the very end which is something I dislike. However I’d happily read more by this author.

Another really great book in the David Raker series with him as the missing persons investigator.
Tim Weaver knows how to spin a story well .Ratcheting up the intrigue and mystery around a Hamlet of nine persons who go missing on the same night . Two years later the relatives of the missing nine get together and contact Raker and employ him to find out what has happened .
A great read culminating in a climax that is totally unforeseen. I really enjoyed this book kept me glued to the pages wanting to know what it was all about. A real puzzler that moves with danger to the investigator,as he pulls out all his resources in a bid to recreate that night. Things start to go down hill for him quickly as other sinister people take an interest in his enquiries with danger around every corner. With his life being threatened every footstep needs to be doubly cautious .

Tim Weaver is a great writer of the suspense novel,well written and satisfying for the reader.Looking forward to the next one.

Nine people sit down to a Halloween dinner in a tiny isolated hamlet. None of them is seen again.Two and a half years on the police have got no where. How can 9 people simply disappear with no clues? David Raker is called in and the chase is on.

This is a well written thriller with a well constructed plot and great characters. This is book 10 in the David Raker series but it can be read as a stand alone book without distracting from the main story. Yes, there are some threads which are obviously from previous books but they didn’t detract from my enjoyment. To be honest they simply made me want to track down the rest of the series to read them in order!

David Raker is a private detective who specialises in missing people. He is disliked by the police and hounded by a persistent journalist. He has little home life and doesn’t really fit into standard society – not unusual for a detective! As a main character he is likeable in a rough and ready way. There is another thread in this book from the1980s with a young American detective, Joline Kraker who is fighting to survive in a male dominated & mysogynistic police force who really don’t like detectives with hunches. A woman struggling to combine family & a career. A great character – strong & feisty but backing down & biding her time. I’ll leave you to discover how the two threads eventually come together. As for the villans of this piece – I won’t talk about who they are as it is important for the reader to discover them for themselves. Suffice to say they are not as straight forward as they seem!

I loved this book. It was well written and clever. It isn’t wall to wall action – in fact a lot of time is spent trawling files, the internet & making phonecalls. Of course there is action as well – the ending being particularly good. However my interest never waned and I wished I could have read this in one sitting. If you like a good thriller then I can heartily recommend this one – it is definitely a good thriller!

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

This is an intriguing story marked by frequent revelations to help the reader put together how the events took place. The fact that this mystery is being pursued by a searcher of missing persons rather than the police helps the strangeness of it all. It does take a bit of imagination to suggest that nine people can be kidnapped from a dinner party of neighbours then taken miles away to be murdered and the description of the eventual solution and aftermath does take too long. The parallel events in .California are integral to the plot and in some ways seem more real and more likely. Nevertheless,even with these reservations,it is a good read.

The 10th book in a series featuring missing persons investigator David Raker. It works standalone though.

Nine people have disappeared without a trace from a cluster of houses in rural North Yorkshire. 30 years earlier in Los Angeles, detective Jo Kader is frustrated to have to drop a murder case....

Well-written, fast-paced and compelling. A rather oddly sequenced ending though, and for me a rather far-fetched plot rescued by the writing.

David Raker #10

I did not realise when I requested this book that it was part of a series. How can nine people in a village vanish? Well it was Halloween. David Raker has been hired several years later to try and discover what had happen to the nine people that had went missing from Black Gale. There is no trace of them or any evidence left behind. The ending leaves a cliffhanger. Raker seemed both a likeable and believable character. It's a well written story with a great plot that caught my attention from the start. This book can be read as a standalone.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Brilliant, had me hooked from page 5 until the very end. Having never read any of this author’s books before I was a bit worried I wouldn’t understand the story of Raker but it is so cleverly written, you do get to know the previous background information. I love the way the two stories interconnected, I don’t usually like stories that go back 20 plus years and come forward and go back, but it is so good I thoroughly recommend. I don’t want to write about the story for fear of giving anything away, but the big question is ‘where did the nine go?’ Read this story, You will not be disappointed.

I was hooked on this book immediately and read it in one night.

Set across two timelines in two countries I wondered where it was going but it all came together perfectly. I need the next book in the Raker series asap! A great series that has me hooked.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

I have heard so many good things about Tim Weaver's series featuring missing person investigator, David Raker, that I finally decided to try it, this is the 10th addition. What I can say is that Weaver is a brilliant crime writer, and here he gives us a central mystery worthy of The Twilight Zone. Two and half years in a tiny Yorkshire Dales rural settlement of Black Gale, the 9 residents sit down for a Halloween dinner party, playing games, taking photos and drinking too much, only for every single one of them to mysteriously disappear into thin air. This is a close knit community of close friends, loved their isolated location, and the last known record of them are the photos from Halloween. There is no evidence of any outsiders arriving, no signs whatsoever of foul play, the entire scene looks normal, missing are the residents mobile phones, wallets and purses, and a camper van that has never been recovered.

With the initial media furore dying down, and a police force unable to find any trace of the occupants, David Raker has been called by three of the relatives to see if he can succeed where everybody else has failed. Raker is largely a loner with a tragic personal history, with a daughter, Annabel, he has only been aware of for a short while, and has made enemies of the police, given he has succeeded in the past where they have clearly failed. It is certainly not usual for him to be looking for 9 people, but are they dead or alive now? In 1985, Joline 'Jo' Kader is the only woman working for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, a time of poisonous misogyny and discrimination that Jo has to battle to survive. It is a time when the city of LA is being terrorised by a particularly brutal and depraved serial killer dubbed The Night Stalker. Jo catches two murder cases that are to haunt her entire working life, a unidentified body found in an acid bath in a Motel and a apparent suicide that she is certain is murder. In a narrative that goes back and forth in time, Raker, helped by Colm Healy, finds himself in the most twisted, challenging and dangerous of cases, where the connections between LA and the Black Gale residents begins to emerge.

I am so delighted to have discovered this superb series and author. Tim Weaver weaves an atmospheric mystery that is absolutely gripping reading, with masses of suspense, and such terrific characterisation. Raker makes an appealing central protagonist, a good man who has helped a friend, Colm Healy, despite the fact it puts him in danger of prison. He is under constant stress being harrassed by a journalist, threatening to do a public exposure of his life. Despite being warned off and seriously threatened to stop investigating, for David, this isn't just a job for him, it's his life. This is a fantastic and enthralling piece of crime fiction, and a series that I think many crime fiction and thriller readers will love. Many thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph for an ARC.

A fascinating book with a story that becomes deeper and captivating as it evolves. Two stories that head towards each other with dramatic conclusions. Definitely recommended.

Unfortunately, when I requested this book I didn’t realise it was in a series. So I will wait to review it properly if I read the previous books in the series and enjoy them enough to read the entire series.

This is the 10th book in the David Raker series by author Tim Weaver. I love Tim Weaver's writing and decided very early on when reading the 1st book in the series that I would purchase the rest of the books. This latest novel is another exceptionally well paced book that has twists and turns and some very good characters.
The 9 residents of Black Gale are a closely knitted group and frequently socialise. On Halloween night all the residents gather for a dinner party but the next morning there is no sign of life. There are no bodies, no sign of a crime and no clues to what has happened to the Black Gale 9. Two and half years on their families ask investigator David Raker to look into this mystery.
For me just reading the description of the book made me want to read more, such a great premise for a novel and so expertly told. Great characters and a plot that is not rushed so that every possible drop of tension is squeezed out. Another great read.
I would like to thank both Net Galley and Penguin UK for supplying this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first Raker thriller I've read - yes I accidentally started on book 10 (doh!) I did feel like I'd missed out on a chunk of back story but I soon got over my silly mistake and sank myself into the the main story. This is a really good thriller. It follows two main threads which you know will ultimately link up somehow - but the how keeps you guessing. Having read this, I'd definitely read more in the series - perhaps books one to nine(!)

No one home by Time Weaver is the 10th book in the David Raker series. But it also could be read as a standalone.
It’s Halloween, and the nine residents of a remote village called Black Gale are having dinner together. He next morning they have all vanished. Nothing has been disturbed apart from their wallets and mobiles gone and one of the couple’s camper van is missing. Two years later, after the Police case has run Cold, David Raker has been called in. Alongside that story we learn of female Homicide Detective Joline Kader, the only women on the force. So, she is all out to prove herself, when she starts investigating a man found in a bath full of acid.
This is another gripping thriller by Tim weaver. Full of intrigue and a clever plot. It had lots of twists and turns but, that didn’t stop Raker working out what happen, even though he has a lot of obstacles stacked against him. I also liked how both stories in the linked together at the end
Thank you, Penguin Michael Joseph, and NetGalley a copy of this book.

My Thanks to Netgalley and publishers Michael Joseph/Penguin for an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. Having read all Tim Weavers books about the journalist turned missing person searcher, David Raker, and enjoyed every one bar the last, I was really looking forward to this one. I wasn’t disappointed, with a few minor reservations. Tim Weaver has always pushed the boundaries with his hero and it’s necessary, frequently, to remind one's self that this is only fiction. Definitely so this time.

This novel has David Raker in search of nine people all living in four adjacent houses, who mysteriously disappeared without trace ,all together, two and a half years previously. Extensive police searches have never found any sign of them. These houses are referred to as a village. Four houses do not a village make. The word settlement would be more appropriate - just. But I do appreciate that for the purposes of the publicity blurb it does sound more dramatic to report that a whole village has vanished. Further, the houses consist of an original farmhouse and three new build homes built by the farmer on his land, making him a very big profit. It is highly unlikely that planning permission would ever be granted for such a scheme on agricultural land out in the middle of remote moorland which is expertly described by the author. Without any knowledge of planning it’s obvious this is a non starter or farms up and down the land would be covered with housing estates large and small, Perhaps this is a minor gripe in what is a work of fiction, but when an author prides themselves on understanding the workings of the police other aspects of their story should be researched too.

David Raker is assisted by his friend Culm Healy, who is in deep hiding and by other off the record sources, both of which have appeared in previous books. It’s worth mentioning here that although part of a series this novel can be enjoyed as a stand-alone tale. As Raker gradually begins to uncover details, people appear from the shadows who, in an attempt to dissuade him from looking further, threaten his well being and finally his life. Interspersed with this story are chapters about an almost lifetime search by a female detective from the Hollywood area for the perpetrators of two murders in 1985. And she never gives up searching. They take place at the same time as the infamous and real life Night Stalker attacks in the same area. Eventually the significance of the American thread becomes obvious.

Tim Weaver uses all his considerable powers of description as ever, and his ability to bring to reality, odd run down, creepy settings remains undiminished. They are always a huge feature of his books. I was constantly terrified of what disaster lay around each corner for Mr Raker and over the next page for me. We finally came to the truly horrific, but rather muddled ending and I was left completely shaken up. As ever I was glad I was reading a Kindle and not a paper edition, or I might have been tempted to commit the unthinkable sin and red biro scribble over the bits that were just too far fetch. But this is fiction and highly enjoyable fiction at that.

Perhaps it’s a factor of not having read the previous books in the series, but I’ve found the opening quarter of this an incredible struggle. An intriguing concept is weighted down by leaden prose, and I’m afraid I’ve abandoned this

Having read most of these out of order, and in retrospect would have been much better off doing it in order, the latest David Raker novel was equally as nail biting as the others. The saga of Healy continues and though he does play a part in this one, he is still much in the background. What intrigues me is that the cliff hangers seem to be larger and larger. The last novel ended with the 'possible' death of Raker and this one ends with another big question mark which I won't elaborate on. It seems to me that the whole plot is central to what is going to happen in the end and that isn't necessarily the outcome one expects. Whatever happened to closure? Whilst I can see that there needs to be an incentive to read further, I do think that perhaps this is a bit extreme, and all in order to sell more books?