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.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this in exchange for an honest review!

When Sadie Saunders goes missing, her five best friends go on a search for her in the woods where she was last seen. Each of them hold secrets and the doubts between them begin to rise...

When I first started reading this I did find it hard to get into. I had a few problems, for example, with the way the teenagers spoke in their interviews, which seemed 'typical teenage speak' - lots of 'likes' etc. I also thought the detective was the typical 'broken' detective that has been seen in so many of the thrillers and mysteries I have previously read. However, this soon stopped being a problem for me as the book went on. I actually began to like the interview sections where the teenagers were telling their stories, I thought it was a really interesting way of getting their stories across. I also enjoyed the detective's background, and I really looked forward to those chapters and how it all related back to the disappearance of Sadie and the situation at hand.

I was gripped from about 100 pages in and couldn't put it down. I had to know what happened, and the setting wasn't something that I had seen before. Simon Lelic did a really good job at making the atmosphere believable and making you feel like you were there with them.

This is the first of Simon Lelic's books I have read, and I definitely will be picking up the others to read in the future!

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.

An ill equiped and unprepared group of five teenagers enter the forest in search of a missing girl. A few days later four of the group are found in the forest, half crazy after their ordeal.

They are found with a dead body, but the girl still remains missing.

This is the case that Detective Inspector Fleet, who specialises in missing person cases, is faced with. Haunted by his past, this is the first time that he has returned to his south coast home town since leaving when he was seventeen.

Most believe that the missing girl entered the swift flowing river that emerges into the town's harbour, but could she be still out there in the vast forest, that surrounds this shabby and below the surface struggling, seaside town?

The novel is composed of a third person narration, that alternates with the first person ones of the search party members, in the form of their interviews given subsequently to the police.

How much of the information here can be relied upon and what secrets are being kept from us?
This is a complex story and contains a twist that forced me to reread the opening chapters again.

Simon Lelic has produced a thrilling read, where the reader I'm sure, will be gripped by the account of the actual events in the forest, resplendent with ongoing fear and paranoia.

Recommended and highly enjoyable.

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.

This one was quite slow at the start. It took me a while to get into it and to get on board with the characters involved. Sadie’s friends who form the search party are all teens, and this is supposed to come across in the way they speak but I’m not sure it always does.

It did pick up about halfway through and is worthy of four stars due to the big twist towards the end. I genuinely spent the book wondering what had happened to Sadie and it was not what I had expected at all.

Overall a good read. This book is published in August and I was able to read it for free in advance thanks to @netgalley in exchange for a review.

It was okay but I didn't enjoy it as much as The House, I didn't gel with the characters and I didn't like the He said she said style of narrative. Sorry, I so wanted to enjoy it.

This book was great. The story was gripping and the unpredictable twists kept coming, just when I thought I'd worked out what was going on.

I liked the character of Fleet and his relationship with his colleague, Nicky. I also thought his relationship with Holly was well written and didn't fall into the usual patterns that married couples in books often do. It was refreshing to read about a police officer in a book who, despite having a complicated personal history, wasn't an alcoholic reclusive absent father, as is so often the case with lead detectives in crime novels.

My only criticism was the way that there was nothing to indicate the change in perspective of the characters. One minute we'd be in a police interview with one of the children and the next, we'd be out with Fleet in the woods but often there wasn't even a new paragraph to indicate this. If the next section started with a lengthy description, it could be quite a while before it became clear that the perspective had changed, resulting in confusion and a lot of going back to reread. Despite this, this book is well worth the effort and hopefully this will all be resolved on release.

I great page turner that kept me gripped to the final page. Sadie, 16, has been missing for 6 days.l after disappearing from her bedroom. Her fiends think the police are looking in the wrong place so they mount their own search in the woods. Has something sinister happened to Sadie, was it one of her friends that has harmed her?
Written in an, at times, unusual format - the police interviews are only given from the children’s point of view. This style worked for me and gave me an opportunity to fill in the gaps for myself. I found book had the right amount of suspense to keep me turning the pages and I didn’t guess ‘who done it’ . It was a good quick read. I will definitely be recommending it to other readers who like crime fiction.

Really enjoyed this book. I’ve not read this author before so didn’t know what to expect. This is a well written book, atmospheric crime thriller with the story gradually forming from a variety of perspectives with the picture gradually becoming clear and an outcome that I didn’t see coming.

I really liked this book. The way some of the story was told in the teenagers voices was a good way of telling it. I really liked the characters as well and could not put it down until I finished it. Highly recommended #NetGalley#TheSearchParty

I have to admit I struggled to get into this to begin with. Whether I'd just hit a reading slump or it was the way the novel opens up I'm not sure.
We begin at a crime scene, a group of friends has gone to help search for their missing pal Sadie.

Straight away we're hit with several mysteries:
-A dead body with as of yet no cause of death.
-The fact they're searching far from where Sadie was last seen but nobody else knows why..
-A possibly biased detective with some sort of history involving his sister..
-Where is Sadie?

For me it was all a bit much to be throwing out in the first 10% of the book. As I didn't yet know about or care for any characters, I'd have preferred all these questions to have been sown into the plot as I read.

We read from first person perspectives of Fleet and the teenagers before and after the incident in the woods. Most of the novel is past tense with the exception of witness testimony- I enjoyed this aspect, like a story within a story, being explained directly to me by the characters themselves. Unfortunately though there was nothing to mark the transition from their voices to Fleet's, I stumbled a few times realising the time and perspective had changed with no indication. Hopefully this will be addressed in the final print.

So it may sound like I was less than impressed BUT then the ending was an absolute belter. I did NOT see it coming and yet it made perfect sense. It took me an entire week to get through The Search Party possibly because I was on the edge of a slump and having read 14 ARCs this year I was beginning to tire of it.
However the pay off for this novel makes it absolutely worth reading.

The Search Party is perfect for YA thriller readers.