I have enjoyed Simon Lelic’s previous novels and the premise of ‘The Search Party’ sounded promising. Five teenagers spend a couple of days in a local forest trying to track down missing Sadie: sister, friend, girlfriend. She is the smartest of the group and much loved by her family. Nobody in the locality knows why she has gone but many have their suspicions, aided and abetted by social media. Not only does the search party return home without Sadie; by the time that they do, her brother is also dead. What happened?
The story is told mainly through the voices of the five teenagers as they are interviewed in the police station. Perhaps the most interesting and complex character in the novel is DI Rob Fleet, originally from the same town that is now the centre of a missing person hunt. He was a troubled teenager and has carved a successful career through sheer strength of character. His understanding of the family dynamic and the teenagers’ volatile relationships comes in part from his own past.
Whilst the final revelations are just about credible, the novel is not as tightly written as I would have expected. There’s a huge amount of wandering round the woods retold from different perspectives which does become slightly tedious. Does Lelic want to immerse his readers in the narrative by allowing them to suffer the same ennui as his group of hunters? This doesn’t seem a very plausible argument. Whilst it’s not a novel to totally disregard, it neither moves at a cracking pace nor allows the reader to fully appreciate the individual characters, DI Fleet excepted. Not a bad read; just not a great one.
My thanks to NetGalley and Viking Penguin Books UK for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

This was such an interesting read as it goes from the perspective of 4 suspects as though you're in the interview room with them, which I felt was a creative way of going through the story. It also follows the detective inspector on the case as he listens to the accounts of the suspects and how he pieces together what actually happened. Definitely recommend reading this book.

Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into this book. Other readers may enjoy it more than I did, but the story was not original enough, and the stream of conversation of the teenage police interviews was annoying. I liked Fleet as a detective,I wish there had been more of this thread, less of the teenagers.

DI Rob Fleet has returned to the town he grew up in to lead the search for teenager Sadie Saunders. So far the search has found her bag and her coat but no other sign of her. Then five other teenagers go missing. Three of them, Cora, Fash and Abi are Sadie’s friends, Mason is her boyfriend and Luke is her twin brother. When they are found some three days later one young person is dead. The group claim they had formed a search party to look for Sadie as they didn’t think the police were looking in the right place. DI Fleet isn’t so sure that they are being totally truthful as each of them could have a motive for killing Sadie and he’s convinced they are hiding something. Fleet has his own issues to deal with as left the town after his younger sister died and some of the residents think he has a grudge.

Really great read through the teenagers responses to the police questions. Keeps you guessing as what has happened right to the end. Five stars from me.

Thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Random House and Simon Lelic for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

I attempted to read this book a few times and ended up skimming it to get to the end (which I also found disappointing). Not a book I will remember... As others have said, the voices of the teenagers are irritating at time and they really do go on. This is will written and in no way ‘amateurish’, it just wasn’t for me. Perhaps I needed to be in a different mood to read it?!

Thank you for the advanced copy and I’m glad to see lots of other people have enjoyed it!

Really enjoyed this book. Told from the POV if several characters it buoot the tension and suspense well. The reveal was shock that I didn't see coming. Great book, well written.

Sadie Saunders has been missing for a week. Everyone thinks she's dead - and that they know who killed her. But her friends aren't sure, and together they sneak out into the woods where Sadie's personal items were found. But one of them isn't telling the truth about their intentions...and the search party maybe isn't searching for Sadie after all...

I absolutely loved the previous Simon Lelic novel I read so I was really excited for this one, and although I did enjoy it, it fell a little flat for me. A lot of the chapters are supposed to be verbatim accounts from the teenagers in their police interviews, which just didn't work - to capture the conversations and events in the woods, they were recalling everything, word for word, and speaking like a novel's author would, not a teenager,so it lacked credibility. I also found it hard to distinguish between the teenage characters as they were very cardboard-cutout.

I did like the story of the detectives threaded through the narrative, and it was well written, but the reveal wasn't worth all the build up. A solid read but there was nothing particularly exciting about it.

Thank you to NetGalley, who provided me with a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Not my favourite book of this year and not one that will stand out to me as remembering I have read it. Wasn’t keen on how the teenagers acted, it felt a bit forced and unrealistic. Plot very similar to other books out there.

It was well written though and the characterisation was good, I just felt it was lacking something a bit different.

Police thriller with an unusual bunch of characters and lots of twists and misdirection. Like the search party I kind of got lost along the way.

Another great read from Simon Lelic which I thoroughly enjoyed. This was quite a complicated tale which was cleverly broken down into the individual characters' voices and woven in with the story at the present day and it all led to a very satisfactory conclusion. Recommended.

This is the story of a group of teenagers who go looking for their missing friend. The format is that the story is told from their perspective, each chapter is a different character. This is interspersed with the ongoing action involving the police investigation.
This works really well as the story unwinds slowly, letting you guess what happened. I have to say I didn't work it out.
Detective Fleet was an interesting character, his back story made the main story more interesting. He was great, I'd like to read more about him.
It was gripping all the way through, a proper page Turner.

This was an incredible novel that drew me in and never let go. I felt emotionally invested in the characters’ lives and couldn’t stop reading.

I really tried to enjoy this book but for me it was marred by the POV of the teenagers. A stroppy lot who turn on each other at the drop of a hat in spite of being so-called best friends. It's a shame because I really liked Detective Inspector Fleet. His relationships with his work partner Nicky, his soon to be ex-wife Holly and his mother. All that was great but the parts told by each of the teenagers in their annoying 'voices' (each tells their own side of the story and didn't they go on and on) kept reminding me of the video footage in the Blair Witch Project - remember that film? I got so annoyed with them that I was hoping they'd all disappear and never come back. Maybe not literally....

And then the ending. I was hoping for something really sinister. Far darker and deeper. Sorry but even though I finished it in record time I am not sure whether I just wanted to get it over with. In reality it's a very good book. Just not for me I'm afraid.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this to review.

A young girl goes missing. Her friends start their own search party. Someone is murdered.

It took me a little while to get into this but once I did I was hooked and had to find out what went on. My first from this author but won't be the last. Characterisation was great, I particularly loved Fash.

A 16-year old girl is missing, assumed probably murdered as a result of some interviews and finds. Five of her so-called friends eventually head into the woods looking for her. The police comprise what I thought was a nearing-retirement jaded DI with a traumatic past, his eminently practical sensible DS and a bean counting boss who wants the boyfriend to be confirmed as being the murderer. Turns out DI Flint is just 36, jaded, traumatised and separated from the wife. The 5 friends initially seem like raging hormones, grumpy teenagers but turn out nasty, devious and self-centred as well. Their parents are essentially non-caring and, with one exception, mostly not involved, even in the interviews of the teenagers with the police, under-age? no parent? Nope.. The book is written from the point of view of one or other of the 5 most of the time, apparently being interviewed but with no input from anyone else. Language is that stereotyped staccato 'like, man' rather too much and did nothing to keep my interest. The next sentence clearly goes to the DI Flint and team without breathe or space but that, hopefully, is because it's an advance copy. The trip to the woods turns out to be a nightmare of course, their phones are stolen, they don't take food other than some Pringles and a chocolate bar, they start bitching about each other and I very nearly gave up. One of them was then murdered - we don't know (or care) who, how, why or by whom and it's back to more interview sessions where it's still clear they they are all lying to one degree or another. The DI's back story partly parallels the present story which adds a bit. The banter between them, and support given to him by his DS are a redeeming feature. The ending was rather predictable I'm afraid. Looking at other reviews I'm clearly in a minority. Glad lots of other people enjoyed it. I didn't. Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books (UK) for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

16 year old Sadie Saunders is missing. Her friends and brother decide to find her themselves as they had somehow become the prime suspects. 5 went into the woods but not all involved would return. The story is told by these friends in flashback but Detective Inspector Fleet knows someone or all is lying. DI Fleet has his own demons to face with this case which may have at first influenced his judgement. The suspects do not come across as characters you want to connect with or care about but you are still engaged enough to care about the outcome.
I was given an ARC of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Sixteen year old Sadie is missing, presumed murdered by the police and the prime suspect is one of her friends.
When her back pack and her bloodstained coat is found it looks like the police are right.
Her boyfriend, whilst not yet under arrest, becomes the prime suspect and the police are under pressure to find the culprit quickly.
Five of her friends are not convinced that where the police have been searching is the right place and form a search party of their own with disastrous consequences.
This is an OK detective mystery, I didn’t find the characters particularly engaging or some of the situations realistic.

Sadie has gone missing and her friends set out to find her but they don’t all come back. What happened in the woods and who is lying?

I wasn’t completely taken with this book and the way in which the teenagers’ chapters was told I wasn’t keen on. Unfortunately it didn’t keep me gripped. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book is not for me it would have been better had we got to know the characters properly before they went missing it was too confusing I couldn’t finish it but have to say it was well written it was such a shame that the story wasn’t that clear it was like starting a book in the middle as if I’d missed a big chunk of it.

A group of teenagers organises a search party to try to find their missing friend, 15 year old Sadie. Who knows her better than her friends? They feel the police aren't up to much, so off they go, bags packed, into the woods where they last saw Sadie. So far, so good – except one of them is found dead, and so the mystery begins.

The writing style of this novel is really weird. It's written from the point of view of each group in the form of a police interview. Except it's not really an interview as there is no interaction with a police presence, so what we have is a slightly stilted monologue from each person. I don't know if the author has spent much time with this age group, but they're either extremely well mannered, well spoken individuals, or totally lacking in personality. It just doesn't ring true. Maybe it would have been better for some dialogue from a police person. Wouldn't a parent have to be present also? There's no indication that there is anyone else in the room.

I've reached 20% of a free download from Netgalley, but I can't read any more.