Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter by Nicci French ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Loved this police procedural book. Charlotte Salter never turned up at her husband’s 50th Birthday Party. She leaves behind 4 devastated children & an unhappy marriage. This is a story of a family who were torn apart. But what did happen to Charlotte Salter. Keeps you guessing. Great writing.

I thoroughly enjoyed this crime novel. A good, thoughtful plot and believable characters. Like a few other reviewers have said, I think that the first part could be shorter. It sets the scene for the rest of the book but the main action is 30 years later. I like a crime story that is straightforward, no ridiculous twists and turns and this book ticks that box. I have to admit that I had my suspicions quite early on but it didn't spoil my enjoyment at all and I think that Maud could have her own series.

I adore Nikki French I’ve been reading her them for a very long time and this book was tremendous. I’d love to see it made for screen.. thanks

I've never read a bad book from the writing duo that makes up Nicci French and this book continues that run. It has everything you expect. Unexplained deaths and disappearance. Dysfunctional families and bumbling policemen. The story is in three parts but flits between a 30 year old cold case and a death by arson in the present. It is an absolutely excellent read and difficult to put down. I would recommend anyone to read it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

I thought this book was absolutely brilliant. It had the right amount of suspense, twists and turns to give it that ‘real’ feel. There wasn’t any point where I thought, that would never happen.

I liked the way the book was split into two; the first half focuses on Lottie’s disappearance in 1990 and the second half is set in the present day. I felt this was a better way of doing it, rather than intertwining the two time periods.

The characters were shaped well and were really well-developed and in my opinion, exactly as they would have turned out after 30 years.

5⭐️ from me.

Thank you to Netgalley and TBC for the ARC.

Description

She’s loved by all who meet her. But someone wants her gone . . .

Then

When beautiful and vivacious Charlotte Salter fails to turn up to her husband Alec’s 50th birthday party, her kids are worried, but Alec is not. As the days pass and there’s still no word from Charlie, her daughter, Etty, and her sons, Niall, Paul and Ollie, all struggle to come to terms with her disappearance.
How can anyone just vanish without a trace?
Left with no answers and in limbo, the Salter children try and go on with their lives, all the while thinking that their mother’s killer is potentially very close to home.

Now

After years away, Etty returns home to the small East Anglian village where she grew up to help move her father into a care home. Now in his eighties, Alec has dementia and often mistakes his daughter for her mother.
Etty is a changed woman from the trouble-free girl she was when Charlie was still around - all the Salter children have spent decades running and hiding from their mother’s disappearance.
But when their childhood friends, Greg and Morgen Ackerley, decide to do a podcast about Charlotte’s disappearance, it seems like the town’s buried secrets – and the Salters’ – might finally come to light.

After all this time, will they finally find out what really happened to Charlotte Salter?

I really enjoyed this book. It was a combination of a police/ crime procedural book and a family drama which made it all the more interesting to me

Charlotte Salter ( Lottie) was wife to Alec and mother to Niall, Paul, Olly and Etty. Etty was the youngest child at 15 years old. It was Alec’s 50th birthday party and all his friends and family were there apart from Lottie. She didn’t show up and nobody had seen her all evening. She disappeared into thin air and the police struggled to find anything that would help them work out what had happened to her. A few days later a family friend of the Salters, who had been close to Lottie, was found dead in the river. Two things of this scale in a small village were rare and puzzling for the residents and the police investigating both incidents.

Thirty years later the Salter children were all back home sorting out the family home and arranging for their father Alec to go into a care home. A new police team was set up to look into the disappearance of Lottie and the assumed suicide of Duncan, the family friend.

DI Maud O’Connor was determined to solve both cases and to do it properly as the original policing team had made some awful errors.

A really enjoyable read that I would definitely recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I read has anyone seen Charlotte Salter as part of my online book club monthly read. I really enjoyed it and it kept me guessing till the end.

Tension Fuelled..
Charlotte Salter disappeared without a trace, failed to arrive for her husband’s fiftieth birthday party, and no one has seen her since. Lives continue, despite struggles and little understanding of what had happened, and the years pass until Etty, Charlotte’s daughter, eventually returns to her hometown to help her father move into long term care. When a podcast threatens to drag up the case of the disappearance, long held secrets may well out along with the facts. A steady and solid mystery with a deftly drawn cast, an immersive and intriguing narrative and a tension fuelled plot laced with heavy doses of suspense. A worthy addition to this writing team’s canon.

Told in three parts this novel tracks the effect of the disappearance of a mother, on her husband’s 50th birthday, on her 4 children. The first part deals with the police investigation at the time of her disappearance and the death - apparently by suicide - of her neighbour. Parts 2 and 3 deal with a podcast of the events of 30 years ago and the recent police investigation of the woman tasked with clearing the family home.

DI Maud O’Connor is determined to solve this recent crime and find out what really happened 30 years before.

This was a slow burner which only really came alive for me during the third part. I did not, however, predict the ending.

Took me a while to get into this storyline and gel with the characters.

I got into it eventually at about 30% and did enjoy it overall but for me personally it wasn't an edge of seater.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC.

I absolutely loved this book and found it very hard to put it down at night. It drew me in, got me emotionally attached and desperate to find out what had actually happened.
I have loved Nicci French's Freida Klein series too and would recommend it.
This is a stand alone book and I will be recommending it to friends. I loved the storyline and truly felt for the characters, particularly Etty. An emotional read.

DO NOT START THIS UNTIL YOU CLEAR YOUR SCHEDULES AS YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PUT IT DOWN!!!!… I absolutely LOVED… Perfect read and keep you hooked… Will keep you up late at night

I've only read a couple of books by these authors (Nicci Gérard and Sean French) but they are good murder mysteries and I will read more. This novel starts 30 years ago when a wife and mother of 4 disappears followed by another town members mysterious drowning. The police quickly wrap up the investigations until 30 years later when an arson attack kills another town member. The police then investigate the cold cases and the new murder.
Picture shows the book cover, a woman in a yellow coat standing on a white wooden path.

I love Nicci French and the new novel will not disappoint fans. A brilliant, dark, twisty mystery thriller with brilliant characters.

When Charlotte Salter goes missing on the night of her husband’s 50th birthday party her children are convinced something terrible has happened to her, she simply wouldn’t walk out on them. The police have no leads and when a local resident commits suicide a few days later they conclude that he killed Charlotte and, as a result of guilt, took his own life. Thirty years later the siblings return home, still unconvinced the police got the right man.

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French is a story told in three parts. It opens a few days before Christmas 1990. It is Alec Salter’s 50th birthday party, everyone is present apart from his wife Charlotte. Alec doesn’t seem bothered and assumes she’s running late. The Salter children don’t appear to be particularly bothered either, apart from the youngest, fifteen-year-old Etty. I really felt Etty’s raw emotion as she tried to convince everyone that her mother wouldn’t abandon the family.

It transpires that the Salter marriage wasn’t a particularly happy one which would make Alec Salter a suspect, however, he has an unbreakable alibi, he was the centre of attention at his own birthday party. Alec comes across as apathetic regarding his wife’s disappearance, I certainly didn’t feel there were any sinister undertones to his behaviour. A lot of the time I felt he was under-utilised as a character, a little like someone who regularly walks across a stage to remind you they exist.

Etty is the driving force who keeps the police and community searching for a mother she knows wouldn’t desert her family. Another reason for Etty’s insistence is that she doesn’t want to be left alone with her father. Etty’s siblings, Paul, Niall and Ollie are all older and have already left home or are about to. There is nothing sinister about Etty not wanting to be left with Alec, it is simply down to his cold indifference.

The middle section of the novel takes place thirty years later. Alec Salter is living with dementia and, despite having a live-in carer, can no longer remain in the family home. The siblings return home to clear the house and facilitate the move to a care home. We get to see how they have been affected by the lack of closure surrounding their mother’s disappearance. They’ve all been affected in some way. Etty left home as soon as she could and lived a risky lifestyle. She’s now a lawyer but chose to live alone, avoiding relationships.

The return home prompts a couple of their peers to start a podcast, hoping that it may prompt new clues in the disappearance to come to light. When a third death occurs the police realise that the original case needs to be reinvestigated.

The third section of the story involves the new police investigation. I found the tone of this section to be very different from the earlier parts of the novel and loved DI Maud O’Connor, the detective tasked with reviewing the case.

DI Maud O’Connor upsets quite a few people early on. The local police don’t appreciate someone from London being drafted in to oversee the investigation. A couple of the male officers in particular took against Maud as she rebuffed their advances before they knew who she was. The fact that she is young and attractive is also held against her. I liked the fact that Maud takes no prisoners, those members of the task force who are hostile towards her are given a chance, but one chance only. If they can’t work as part of a team she has no use for them.

As the evidence is re-examined and witness statements double-checked the family eventually finds closure.

Thank you to Netgallery and the publisher for this ARC. I absolutely loved this book lots of secrets and many twists and turns! It had short chapters which made me race through it.

My favourite character was Maud as I felt a connection to her and hopefully she will feature in more books this would be great if this was turned into a tv series,

Overall, a twisty and unputdownable thriller would highly recommend! 😊

Loved this book. Hooked from the very first paragraphs about Lottie. The story was set in two eras 30 years apart which worked very well. We were carefully introduced to all the characters, who appeared in both era’s. The storyline was well constructed and we were gently led through the disappearance of Lottie, and the subsequent police investigations 30 years apart. Loved the characters, especially Maud. This was my first Nicci French novel, but it will not be my last!

In the gripping novel "Vanished Without a Trace," author explores the haunting mystery of Charlotte Salter's disappearance and the lasting impact it has on her family. When Charlotte fails to show up for her husband Alec's 50th birthday party, her children are left bewildered and concerned. However, Alec remains strangely unperturbed. As the days turn into weeks, the Salter children, Etty, Niall, Paul, and Ollie, grapple with the agonising uncertainty of their mother's fate. Years later, Etty returns to her childhood village to assist in moving her aging father into a care home. Alec's dementia has taken hold, often mistaking Etty for her long-lost mother. Etty, once carefree, now carries the weight of her family's secrets and the burden of their collective trauma. When their childhood friends, Greg and Morgen Ackerley, decide to delve into Charlotte's disappearance through a podcast, the town's hidden truths and the Salter family's darkest secrets threaten to resurface.
With the passage of time, will the Salter children finally uncover the truth behind their mother's vanishing act? As the podcast unearths buried secrets, the tension builds, and the possibility of finding closure becomes tantalizingly close. "Vanished Without a Trace" is a riveting tale of suspense, family bonds, and the relentless pursuit of truth. Prepare to be captivated as the Salter family's past collides with their present, leading to a shocking revelation that will leave readers breathless.

A complex story of inter-related family histories and how the disappearance of Charlotte Slater affects he family and close friends. I found it a compelling story with a few twists at the end. Not outstanding writing but enjoyable enough read. Look forward to more from this author.

Classic Nicci French. I devoured this book and struggled to put it down. Initially it’s the story of a woman who goes missing on her husband’s 50th birthday. Loved by all but him, her family is never the same again. A man is found dead and the case conveniently closed as a murder/suicide. The second part moves forward 30 years and is dominated by a podcast on the case and possibly a third murder. Beautifully written, with the desolation of the setting and the sadness of an unresolved mystery. The third part introduces a new detective in charge and a completely new perspective.