A missing girl. Five friends. Who will survive…

Sadie Saunders has been missing for a week, everybody thinks she has been murdered, and the suspicion falls on her boyfriend Mason.

Together with Mason, Sadie's brother and best friends vow to find out the truth and form a search party in the woods where Sadie was last seen.

Two days later the police receive a frantic call for help, one of the group has not survived and it is left to Detective Inspector Robert Fleet and his partner DS Nicola Collins to piece together the information to try and uncover the truth about what happened in the woods and to finally discover what led to Sadie’s disappearance.

I loved the Search Party by Simon Lelic. I found the style of writing very unusual – the police interviews with the group of friends only showed their side of the conversation leaving it up to the reader to fill in the other side. This took a while to get used to but eventually I found that it gave the story a modern ‘reality show’ feel. It was almost as if they were diary entries rather than interviews, and I thought this would work well as a TV series.

As I was reading I decided that I had worked out what had happened several times, and each time – as more information came out – I realised that I was wrong. There were so many twists and turns, the difficulty was trying to decide who was lying, what they were hiding from the police (and their friends), and why. As the story had lots of characters and different backstories, I could see it going in a few different directions and even though by the end I had worked out who was involved, I hadn’t guessed the exact circumstances or the final outcome.

I read the whole book over two days as the tension kept building throughout the story and I got to the point where I couldn’t leave it without finding out what was going to happen in the end. I didn’t find the story especially creepy but it definitely gripped my attention, had a great atmosphere and some interesting characters - I would highly recommend it.

For some reason I found it hard to get into this book. In The Search Party a 15 year old girl, Sadie is missing in the woods and her friends are looking for her, hence the search party. Written in points of view style, Sadie's friends all have something to say and obviously not the truth, when a dead body, not Sadie, turns up. The police do their utmost to get to the truth as the teens have been in the woods for 2 days looking for Sadie. DI Fleet and DS Collins have their hands full. I have read previous books of Simon Lelic and enjoyed them.

I have read 'The Liar's Room' and 'The House' by this author and really enjoyed them but unfortunately this one didn't quite have the same feeling for me. Maybe I could't relate to the 16 year old characters.
The more I read the more I started to enjoy it but not quite enough to score higher.
The story is about a search party set up by the friends of missing 16-year-old Sadie Saunders. Her five friends set out in the woods to find Sadie, all are friends and they are also suspects. And not everyone will make it home alive.

I would like to thank both Net Galley and Penguin UK for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

The Search Party is my first book by this author and it certainly will not be the last.
A 16 year old girl goes missing and five friends go to find her but quickly become suspects and all very reluctant to speak with the police.
I found The Search Party gripping and intense which had my guessing at every turn with a very clever twist.

I’m in the minority here as I can see from other reviews, but this book was not good for me. I love Simon Lelic books and was so excited to get my hands on an ARC of this... but I didn’t enjoy it.

I found the writing style totally off. I couldn’t grasp that the narrations were supposed to be 16 year old kids telling the police what happened. First of, no one would talk to the police they say they did, especially not teenagers. And another, no one would talk like that anyway. It’s like when you read a book full of diary entries and the character has written like 50 pages of detail and dialogue about their day and you just think... no. No one writes in that much detail. For me it was the same with these interviews. No one talks in this much detail ever. Especially not under such pressure.

I also found the plot and the twists to be really predictable. Not in a way that I felt proud of myself for guessing but literally like how could you not see that coming??

I’m so sorry, I will totally read more from this author as he’s written some awesome thrillers... but this one was not for me.

Enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. Really liked the story being told in two ways, including the police interviews with the teenagers from the search party. A clever twist.

A 16 year old girl is missing and five friends go to the woods to find her... five friends who become suspects. A compelling story with interesting characters, it will keep you guessing to the end. Recommended!

Frustratingly gripping story of five friends searching for a missing girl whilst the police are desperate to get to the truth behind their reluctance to tell it. Cleverly written book that hooked me into needing to know what happened and who died right to eh very end..

#TheSearchParty #NetGalley
This author completely fooled me with the good writing.
Sandie Saunders is missing. Her friends are in forest with a body. They're friends for Sandie but they're suspects for the police. Who killed Sandie?
I was hooked when I started reading this book. Its writing style is awesome with brilliant characters who are able to fool me till its end.
When I started reading it I was expecting an ok read because I've read such kind of books earlier but this book was different. Its ending is important. And the sixth day told in the story is important so read it carefully.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin UK for giving me an advance copy.

I’ve been a fan of Simon Lelic since I read The Liars Room so my expectations going into The Search Party were pretty high!
I found the start of The Search Party slow and confusing but stick with it because this book blew me away! Simon has such a fantastic grip of language, every word of this story is perfection, the relationships between the characters felt real and honestly I loved this story!
Get it read!

Gripping and tense, this keeps you guessing right until the very end! The author does an excellent job of giving each member of the search party a distinctive voice

<I><b>”Just because we think we’re alone out here, doesn’t mean we are.”</b></I>

Simon Lelic is a great painter of thrillers! I wasn’t sure at first how I was going to like this story in the way that it’s told. But as events were quickly unfolding, I caught on and enjoyed it.

Dark, creepy forests are my jam. Add in a murder and a bunch of paranoid, scared teenagers trying to figure out what happened, I’m sold!

I put my money on who killed Sadie, and I was wrong. It pleases me to say that because that’s how you know a story is written good. I’ve read a lot of thrillers so to be stumped is a nice turn of events!

<I><b>”It sounds like there’s more than one thing going on . . .</b></I>

There certainly is A LOT going on here, so pay attention. As the kids are interrogated, or questioned, the story is told through their recalls of what happened that night. The night that changed all of their lives forever.

Who murdered who? And how do you know you can trust them even if they say they didn’t? That is the question! Lelic did an AMAZING job at creating a tense, desperate, SCARY atmosphere. I love the vibes of this type of book. Read it and tell me it doesn’t creep you out just a little!

*Review to be posted on the blog closer to release day

Simon Lelic completely fooled me. Here's the truth! The Search Party is one hell of a search for the truth, with time ticking and the pressure closing in on the police... Adrenaline-pumping and brilliantly addictive, I couldn't tear myself away from this novel!

One missing teenager.
Five friends at a loss, on the police's suspects list.
A deadly trip to the wood.

What would you do if your friend had gone missing and the days passed without news? What if the police turned to you for answers? What if you didn't want to give them any?

I wish I had the words to describe the outstanding fascination I have for this book. It all starts with a phone call to the emergency number. I was on my toes! Then, without a warning, I turned a page to see 'Day 6' announced. Immediately, I was feeling robbed! Where were the first five days???????? But soon, I realised those days didn't matter... Or more precisely, the days to come would prove to be the key to not one but two cases. Sadie Saunders has been missing for six days when her friends are found in the forest, next to a body. From a missing-person case to murder, What?!
Then voices began to clear the fog. Each friend slowly turning back time to give the police, and the reader, their account of what happened.

Between those interviews, DI Fleet and DS Collins fight the pressure of the community, the media, and their boss for results. Sadie hasn't reappeared, but a body has, and things get muddier with every passing hour. If DI Flint had his eyes on a particular suspect, he starts to doubt himself, wondering if his own past has been tainting his view on the missing person case. Here is the time for me to tell you how much I am in awe of how the author managed to juggle several teen voices in an interview-like tone, layered with a perfect third-person police narrative following Fleet and adding depth to the whole book with a personal dimension which adds even more darkness to the investigation. This book is the Graal. A top-notch characterisation made gold to support an atmospheric and enthralling thriller. I mean, the mystery is real, it is good, it had me biting my nails again, but wow, those people? They just make the book. That authenticity in relationships, mistakes, secrets, enhanced by a terrific and terrifying setting in the wood just blew my mind.

So who will be at the top of your suspects list? Personally, I couldn't make up my mind. I could feel details nagging at me, as if the trees were telling me something wasn't right, I was missing something... Talking about the trees... You won't find me wandering around the woods anytime soon. The author chose each word carefully so each twig creaking, each shadow, felt threatening. It all added to the building paranoia and the sense of danger around the teenagers, so much that I kept wondering if there was really a way out of it; not just the woods, but this whole horrendous and tense situation everyone was stuck in.

Simon Lelic set a trap and fell right into it. Absorbed by my reading, my brain jumping from one chapter to the other, making assumptions, I didn't see the big wall of truth. The Search Party is a bit hit. I loved everything about it. It made me feel alive. I couldn't get enough of the characters. I didn't want to let go and leave them behind, safe in the pages of the book. A truly chilling and complex novel!

Five friends decided to form a search party and go into the woods,hoping to find their missing friend, Sadie Saunders. Two days later,the emergency services received a frantic phone call for help and when they arrived at the isolated location of the call,they discovered four,cold, wet and distressed teenagers and a dead body,a body that did not belong to the missing girl. Now not only do Detective Inspector Robert Fleet and his partner DS Nicola Collins have a missing person's investigation,they also have a murder to solve. They find themselves in a frantic race against time to find the missing girl, everyone knows that the longer someone is missing, the higher the changes are that they won't be found alive. They are also under pressure from their superior officer to charge and arrest one of the friends despite the lack of evidence due to rumours of police incompetence that are doing the rounds in the village. When Sadie had first gone missing, Fleet had suspected the same person but as time passes,he begins to wonder if his own judgement had been clouded by a tragic event from his past. Fleet is certain that the four remaining teens are not telling the whole truth about what happened during their time in the woods and that they also might know more about Sadie's disappearance that they are admitting.

So where is Sadie? Is she alive or dead? What really happened during the two days that the teens spent in the woods?

This utterly enthralling thriller opens with the teen's frantic phone call to the emergency services and then continues in chapters that alternate between the four friends police interviews and the police investigation. I thought that only two of the five friends had any likeable qualities to their characters and I struggled to understand why they had remained friends for so long. Maybe it was because they were misfits and had discontented homelives and that was the glue that held the group together. There was friction amongst the group even before they went into the woods so the more time they spent in the isolated atmosphere amongst the trees,the more the tension and feelings of paranoia increased especially when it began to appear that someone was following them. I really love reading books that are set in woods and forests, the sinister atmosphere even during the hours of daylight,the indistinguishable shadows amongst the trees, the silence that makes you feel like you are the only person alive. The smallest sound that can sound as loud as the biggest thunder clap. I loved the intensity of the scenes that were set in the woods,the atmosphere,the paranoia,the creepy feeling that the friends were being followed, the sounds that echoed around the trees at night. I thought that DI Fleet was a very likeable character and I loved the camaraderie and banter between him and DS Nicola Collins. There was a back story involving his sister that was mentioned throughout the book but it didn't overshadow the main story.

I really, really loved The Search Party, I loved it so much that I wanted to read the whole book in one sitting but my old eyes had other ideas. It was gripping, intense,had a couple of jaw dropping OMG moments, kept me guessing and frantically turning the pages. The characters were diverse, vivid and realistic. Simon Lelic is a very very talented author and I think this story would make a very enjoyable tv crime mini series. Worth far more than five stars and very very very highly recommended