If you're a fan of BBC police procedurals a la Broadchurch, the Suspect fits that mold. Told from multiple points of view, but driven by Reporter Kate Waters, the Suspect chronicles a story/case where two teens have gone missing in Thailand. As the mystery unravels, Kate discovers she has a personal connection to the story, complicating her involvement. The characters are compelling, but the storytelling is so straightforward, it lacked tension and mystery for this reader.

This was my first Fiona Barton book and I didn't realize it was part of a series, though that didn't seem to matter as enough was explained throughout. The story was a slow built up told through multiple points of views. I especially enjoyed the reporters point of view and the missing woman's point of view. I would have enjoyed more of the missing woman's point of view to hear more about her story- the bits that were there were a bit of a teaser. I would definitely consider reading more books by the anther. Thanks for the ARC copy.

This author is a definite must read author for me. Her books are always so well written and engaging. I don't know how anyone could not enjoy her books.

This book is a standalone. However, it is connected to her first two books. The main characters of the reporter and inspector are important parts of all three of her books now. Things with these characters' personal lives and how they intertwine with this book are essential. My advice is to read The Widow and The Child before you read this one. You can follow this book without them, but you won't have the whole backstory and friendship that are important to all three books.

This book... Wow. I really don't know what to say. My heart broke for every parent in this book. Barton did such a wonderful job at portraying each parent playing their part so well, it seemed real. Not that it couldn't have been real. Things like this happen all too often.

So here we are.... Where are the missing girls? What happened to them? Where is Kate's son, Jake? In Barton's previous two books you got a glimpse into the woes of Kate and Bob. In this book, their lives and friendship are put to the test when everything seems to intertwine with one another. Trust is a big key component in this book. It is safe to say we can't always trust those who are closest, but we also can't turn our backs on those who are more likely to hold us up.

This book, like the previous books, is a slow build. It's delicious and sets the stage for a story that is bound to hold you captive from start to finish. The characters, the plot, the little twists that leave you scratching your head. My advice, hold on tight. This book is bound to take you on a ride!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing this book for review.

I will admit right off the top that I am an addict of Fiona Barton's books. I find her characters so real and just as full of human failings as the rest of us. Bad things even happen to good people, and the good people's family members have serious problems like the rest of the world.

In "The Suspect," Kate Waters, the journalist follows a story to Thailand about two girls who disappeared not long after arriving in Bangkok. Suddenly Kate's own life is tangled up in the story, and she has to make some hard decisions, particularly about her family member's part in the story. And in the end the question that sometimes comes to all of us: do we provide unwavering support to a family member just because they are a family member? A conundrum that touches the heart.

Alexandra (Alex) and Rosie are two British girls who travel to Thailand in their gap year while waiting to begin further studies. Alex regularly communicates to her parents during the trip. However, when she stops communicating, her parents become worried. They contact the police to see if anything can be done.

Kate is an ambitious newspaper reporter who takes an interest in the missing persons report. She feels a connection with the parents because her own son, Jake, is also in Thailand and hasn’t contacted her in a long time. She thinks this is a real human interest story that would appeal to the newspaper’s readers. She arranges to meet and interview the girls’ families and write a news story about them.

Told from many different viewpoints, this novel brings to life a parent’s worst nightmare. The tension builds slowly as the girls’ story unfolds and raw emotions explode. Complex and suspenseful, it is a well written, plausible and realistic tale that is hard to put down and will hold your interest until the final stunning conclusion. This is one of the best suspense stories I’ve read in quite some time!

Thank you to author Fiona Barton, Berkley Publishing (an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC), and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC of this first rate novel— I would highly recommend it!

Told from several points of view, this story reveals many facets to a tragic mystery. Mothers become the focal pint of a tragic mystery and how much they want to protect their children even after death.

Even with fiction, I like the story to be plausible. I felt this novel had a disconnect between Thailand and London, the dual settings for the mystery. I never got a good image of the Bangkok portion of the story. The changing POVs worked well as a vehicle to know the characters and explain the action but the "mystery" wasn't especially mysterious and most of the characters were simply irritating. But the plot moved at a good pace and it was an easy read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for the ARC to read and review.

This has the elements of a very interesting mystery that pulls in the perspectives of family, police, media through rotating narration and characters with varied roles in the story. However, the plot was fairly predictable and the character development was not thorough enough to make up for it. Overall, an average book from Barton.

Fiona Barton has a way of wrapping her plot around the premise and moving slowly toward the answers, while leaving the reader to question each and every angle from the birds-eye view. What a premise to tackle. Young girls traveling abroad on their own. Families relying solely on their emails and Facebook posts to know they are surviving and doing fine. And what do you do when you stop hearing from them altogether? I love how Barton is able to weave multiple perspectives and multiple time periods seamlessly to create a fast paced thriller. From the families of the missing girls, the detective, the reporter, and to the girls themselves each perspectives clues into what is really going on and who all is involved. With each new novel Barton creates, they get better and better. I am looking forward to more from this author.

This is the thriller series I've been wanting. Book three of Reporter Kate Waters and D.I. Bob Sparkes is as engrossing, if not more than, the first two.
The story of "The Suspect" has its own captivating mystery while continuing deeper into the personal lives of the inspector and the reporter.
I hope that was a hint toward a book four at the end; I'd like to read more of these two.

Two teenagers decide to spend their gap year in Thailand. One girl backs out and is replaced with a fun loving substitute. Both girls wind up dead in a fire in a sleazy guesthouse. Detectives, reporters, family members get in the mix and all are hunting for the suspect(s). Lots of back flashes, emails, and descriptions of their adventures - mostly x-rated. Not as suspenseful as I had hoped from her previous work - but an interesting cliff hanger ending. All in all, a good read.

I love the characters of Bob and Kate. This is my third Fiona Barton read and I feel like each one has been better than the last. I figured out one of the major twists in this one, but there were still more to come! Also really enjoyed the setting in Thailand.

Alex O’Connor and Rosie Shaw went to Thailand for a trip of a lifetime to celebrate the end of secondary school. Unfortunately, after they arrived, Alex, who had originally planned the trip with her best friend Mags, learned that she and Rosie were not of the same mind when it came to organizing their activities. Still, Alex was determined not to tell anyone except her BFF Mags. On social media, she was still maintaining the fiction of an ideal getaway. But when Alex and Rosie miss their scheduled check-in with their parents in England and a week goes by without any contact, they report the eighteen-year-olds missing.

Kate Waters, the dogged reporter from The Widow and The Child sees the potential for a big story and pursues it for her paper, The Post. But she doesn’t count on the events being as personal as they are nor can she imagine the circumstances in Thailand that led to the girls’ tragedy. She must ask herself how far she will go to get to truth and how much she will sacrifice for the story.

The Suspect is structured much like Barton’s previous books. Here, the main point of view characters are the Mother, the Detective, and the Reporter. Only the Reporter chapters told from Kate’s point of view are in first person. The shifting perspectives allows Barton to provide different aspects of the story, but the Detective, DI Bob Sparkes, and the Mother, Lesley O’Connor, are flatter than I prefer in major characters.

One of the best things about the Kate Waters books is that the protagonist is a middle-aged woman defined by her accomplishments instead of her appearance. Though she is often one (or more) steps ahead of the police, she has a generally good relationship with Sparkes. Through their relationship, Barton explores the interdependence of the police and press.

In the novel, mothers play a much more significant role than fathers who range from well-meaning if ineffective to selfish and destructive. The mothers of the two missing girls bear the brunt of the trauma and handle it much differently. Motherhood is also represented by other characters including Kate, Mama, the proprietress of the Bangkok guesthouse where Alex and Rosie are staying, and a series of foster mothers of a character who appears in the novel. They all approach motherhood differently in ways that range from neglectful to supportive to unhealthy, and the mother-child relationships inform how the teenage characters in the novel behave and make decisions.

Social media and how people present personas highlights the theme that it is so difficult to know others when they are controlling their public selves--even when those others are one’s own children.

The narrative is not linear. The greatest effect of this is an impending sense of doom since we know the outcomes of some events before the characters those events effect. At times, though, this device becomes confusing such as when it is used within a chapter to enhance suspense. Instead of evoking a sense of mystery, these moments caused me to step out of the narrative to figure out what was happening.

Having the book set in part in Bangkok was an exciting choice, and I looked forward to seeing English characters in the Thai setting. This, however, was a missed opportunity because the capital city was presented as a den of iniquity that swallowed up westerners. There was only one Thai character of note, and she was a fairly one-dimensional villain. The Thai police were represented as a mixture of incompetent and corrupt and the people in general as untrustworthy. I found this depiction of Thai citizens problematic and wished that Barton had included a more positive Thai representative.

In the previous two Kate Waters books, Kate is generally seen as competent, confident, intelligent, and aggressive. While she still has these traits in The Suspect, she is challenged by the events of the book in a way that makes her to me more interesting. At the end of the book, she was talking about taking a buyout in the Post’s next round of redundancies. I hope that’s not the case. I’d like more of her! This book is not to be missed by Fiona Barton fans. Readers of literary mysteries will also enjoy The Suspect.

3.5 stars. A decent enough, slow-building mystery/police procedural, similar to the other two books I’ve read by Fiona Barton. The story rather calmly unfolds through several different characters’ points of view. The journalist from Barton ‘s previous books returns to report on the disappearance of two young women on a gap year trip to Thailand. The story becomes personal when her son appears to be involved. The reporter character, Kate Waters, is well-written and sympathy for her dilemma grows as she becomes the news item instead of the news reporter. The ending is a bit disappointing as it is inferred rather than clear cut.

The Suspect was a great book! Very dramatic and mysterious and I didn't see the switch up coming. This really is every parent's nightmare and in both the sense of the girl's and the boy's story. Two young girls go missing on a trip to Thailand and one young boy left home a year before and his parent's do not know where he is or if he is okay. Their stories intertwine in the most unfortunate way. I enjoyed how the story switched between the the parents, the reporter, the detective, the diary of one of the girls and the actual events that took place. You were getting everyone's point of view and you were learning about what really happened piece by piece which really kept the suspense of the story lined up. It also made you think about what a mother would do to protect her child, under any circumstances. I like how it ended with a bit of a cliff hanger. Loved it! I will be looking for other titles by this author from now on.

Two British girls are missing in Bangkok. The story is told from the perspective of the Reporter, The Mother and the police. A trip of a lifetime turns into a disaster and the Reporter ends up being more involved than she originally sought. A good amount of suspense and some unexpected twists make for a well written mystery. This author is pretty consistent in delivering a solid novel.

Provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

There are things to like about this book -- it's a fine narrative and the writing is by and large solid -- but there are also a lot of things not to like as well. As I notice some other reviewers have mentioned, the profusion of points of view combined with the non-linear time structure is incredibly confusing and sometimes downright irritating to try to read. It's like sitting in a noisy, crowded room with too many people talking at once, all of them trying to tell you the same story from a slightly different perspective. It's not enriching and it's not fun. You just want most of them to shut up and let one person tell you what happened in a sensible and straightforward manner.

Fiona Barton has written another intriguing psychological thriller that’s hard to put down.

Two teen-aged British girls disappear while on a post-graduation trip to Thailand. Newspaper reporter Kate Waters takes an interest in learning more after meeting the girls’ parents. Kate’s own son is on a gap-year trip, and she can relate to a mother’s worry, especially when the travelers do a poor job of keeping in touch. Little does she realize how personal her interest will become once she travels to Thailand to flesh out her story.

Three characters narrate the novel in alternating chapters — one of the missing girls, Kate, and Detective Inspector Bob Sparke of the London police. Through their eyes we experience the seedy side of Bangkok, the angst of parents waiting for news they may not want to hear, and the damage that dogged commitment to career can wreak on families. Interesting twists keep the ending from being predictable even though one must wonder at the coincidence that brings all of the characters together in the first place. Barton’s enjoyable writing style keeps it all moving along, creating a book that’s likely to keep you reading later into the night than you may have intended.

Four and a half stars.

In Fiona Barton's newest novel our favorite journalist Kate Waters suddenly goes from reporting the story to being the story. When 2 local girls go missing in Thailand Kate, who is covering the story thinks of her own son who has been traveling and uncommunicative for the last couple of years. On the front lines of the story Kate discovers that the story of these missing girls is entwined with her own story in ways she could never have imagined. Full of intrigue and suspense Barton's newest novel does not disappoint!

Fiona Barton is back and The Suspect is even better than The Widow. You'll be turning pages until the last one.