THE SEARCH PARTY brings a thick layer of tension to this story while navigating through the emotions and actions of the characters within it. Lelic, though I prefer THE LIAR'S ROOM, weaves together a dark tale with shocking twists.

This was a fun, easy thriller in my opinion. I really liked the story, I'm a sucker for teenage suspense book that takes place in the woods. Of course all them have secrets and then when one ends up dead and I bet you can guess how things go from there. Super quick, enjoyable read!

What happened to Sadie Saunders?

When the teen goes missing her friends feel they are best suited to find her. The police may have the resources but her friends have reasons of their own to be the ones to find her.

This was a difficult book to lose myself in., with a pace a bit too slow for my liking.

This is the third book I've read by Simon Lelic. I have had a love and barely like relationship with this author. Once again I find this read falling into the latter category.

Though this read may not have been the best fit for me I will definitely still be reaching for his next release.

A buddy read with Susanne

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

Ok this book sounded terrific. I really wanted to like it. But it just was ok.

For me, part of the problem was this had somewhat of a feeling of a UK procedural cop book. I can’t exactly articulate why I don’t just love those books- but I don’t (and if I had known from the blurb it was going to be more like this- I probably wouldn’t have requested.)

Second: The teenagers. I know. They are teenagers and they can’t walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. But really? You are going to bring along speakers on your search for your friend- but not food or drink or a flashlight?



What I Liked:

The cover.

The tie in to the detective’s past.



Bottom line: It was ok. It wasn’t terrible and it wasn’t great. I won’t be telling people to read or not to read this book.

I tried really hard to get into this one and unfortunately, it's just not working for me. Than you for the opportunity to be an early reader.

This book started out slow for me, but ended up picking up half way through. I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed the story. I truly did not know how the story would end.

I particularly liked the different view point of each character. The dialog did reflect each of their different personalities. I have to say, I was a bit confused about the beginning and Luke, but I won’t post spoilers.

It was nice that all questions were answered at the end of the story, however it did seem a bit long winded. All in all I would highly recommend this book.

With their understated reactions to everything, the British usually deliver mysteries and thrillers that pack a quiet punch with endings that reverberate. British author Simon Lelic continues this tradition with The Search Party, the writer’s first psychological thriller. When their friend goes missing, five teenagers head to the woods to find her… with tragic results. As Detective Inspector Fleet tries to piece together what actually happened based on four very different accounts, at the same time he fights memories from a tragedy in his own past in the same town from which Sadie Saunders disappeared.

To read the complete review, click on the link below.

Five teenagers set off in the woods to search for their best friend Sadie who went missing days prior. Though the police are investigating, the teens are sure the police have no idea what they're doing.

The issue of course is that every single member of “The Search Party” has a secret and in this case, it turns out to be deadly.

When one of the teens winds up dead, everything goes awry, including their plans to find the truth, making this whodunit even crazier than you could imagine.

Atmospheric, compelling, intriguing and twisty-turny, “The Search Party” is an extremely suspenseful thriller that kept me on my toes throughout. The writing style is unique and admittedly took me a while to get into but once I did I was all in! Well done Simon Lelic!

Another captivating buddy read with Ms. Kaceey!

Thank you to Elisha at Berkley Publishing Group, NetGalley and Simon Lelic for the arc.

Published on Goodreads on 10.10.20.

I really enjoyed the Liar's Room and was excited to jump into this novel. Being a high school teacher, I'm always into stories of teenagers in distress and a mystery to solve. A great read!

When one of your friends has gone missing from your group of friends, what do you do? Well you go into the woods where she went missing in the first place and try to find her of course.

This is the situation that 5 friends find themselves in. Despite police search efforts, Sadie is nowhere to be found. The group of teenagers think the police are looking for Sadie in all the wrong places, and who better to know Sadie and where she could be than those closest to her. Each of these teenagers has something to hide and makes you guess that either one of them could be responsible. No one can be trusted and believed, so who did it?

This book will have you engaged in the story, desperate to find out what happened to Sadie and who is responsible. I love a good who-done-it type of novel and this novel is just that. It keeps you guessing and second-guessing what you thought you knew, and is full of twists and turns that you will not see coming.

An enjoyable book that I recommend.

Teenagers with secrets set out to find a missing girl whose disappearance they know more about than the police can pry out of them. Okay, but has something of a YA angsty feel to it that I found a bit trying, along with the angsty detective. The setting, pacing, and plot were well done, and overall the writing style is accomplished. I may simply be uninterested in spending so much time with teens.

This is my first Simon Lelic book, but certainly won’t be the last. This would probably be a garden variety missing person (suspected death) story if not for the very unique way it’s told. It alternates between the viewpoint of the officer heading the investigation, and the friends of the missing teen being questioned by police. We jump from kid to kid (their names head the chapters, so you know who’s talking) as they tell police their version of their joint attempt at forming an impromptu search party to find their friend. Key details of the story are revealed during these interviews in a fashion designed to very successfully keep the suspense at a high point. I loved it, and would recommend it to any mystery lover!

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview The Search Party by Simon Lelic. A young woman, Sadie, goes missing - no one knows where she has gone and it's going on a week now. Sadie had friends - but now they are suspects. Five of her close friends decide they want to look for her in the woods to prove their innocence, and also to find Sadie.
Sadie's friends all have their own past and story - and all of them had a history with Sadie.
Soon the past will present itself and not everyone who went into the woods looking for Sadie will come out - and where is SADIE?
3 stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Berkley Publishing, and Simon Lelic for the opportunity to read his latest thriller - this one will really have your head spinning! 4.5 stars for such a creative read!

Sadie is a teenager who has been missing for almost a week and DI Rob Fleet has been called to his hometown to search for her. But her 5 closest friends, including her twin brother, decide to take matters into their own hands and conduct a search party of their own in the woods they like to frequent. But each of the friends is keeping a secret and one of them might be a killer.

I loved the way this story was told. It starts on Day Six after Sadie has gone missing and is told through police interviews with each of the teenagers, interspersed with DI Fleet's police investigation. It's interesting to read the perspective of each person even though you know that they are all unreliable narrators, even talking to the police. And what makes each of their interviews unique is that you only read the voice of the teenager, not the investigator's question. The ending took me totally by surprise. Another winning book by this author!

Sixteen-year-old Sadie Saunders has been missing for a week. 5 of her friends don’t feel the cops are doing enough , so form their own search party to find her.They go into the woods to search for her but manage to get lost themselves. After a few days when the cops find them one of them is dead ..

Told through police interviews with the kids and from DCI Fleet The Search Party is a well written, tightly plotted thriller with lots of suspects that kept me hooked to the end.

I would like to thank publishing group & NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.

This is the second book I read in a row about something that happened in the woods and a group of friends! I liked that the main characters in this book were teens, with the additional viewpoint of the detective who was looking into the case. The chapters were told as if the teens were talking to the detectives and explaining what happened after they set out on their search party.

The group of friends are all bound together – Sadie was dating Mason and Luke is her twin brother. The other two girls and the third boy make up their group. There are various misleads to make you suspect members of the group or to wonder if someone outside of the group killed Sadie. You also wonder if Sadie merely ran away, and there are clues pointing to that happening as well.

I was truly surprised by the twist that occurred towards the end, and wondered how I had been so sure something was true that turned out to be another mislead! Overall, if you are a thriller fan, you are likely to enjoy this one!

3.5 Star

The idea of 5 best friends trying to find out what happened to Sadie all while protecting each other and themselves was intriguing. I loved that they each had their own stories to tell and were willing to tell them to the police. As with any story told, I had no doubt that there was so much more to the story than what met the eye.



I am a fan of Simon Lelic. I have read his past books and loved them, found them unable to put down. With The Search Party, I struggled a little bit with the text. Maybe it was more the format. The story was told by Sadie’s 5 best friends and a DI Fleet. It seemed that the friends rambled on, sometimes reliving the same event as seen through different perspectives. There was not much dialogue and that threw me off the story. I wanted to connect with the characters, to feel their pain at the loss of their friend and to fear their fear while searching the woods.



Simon Lelic has a talent of writing thriller stories. There are twists, turns, ups, and downs. Try as I might I cannot solve the who-dun-it but I enjoy taking the ride.

I really enjoy thrilling secrets books and this one was a really great read from start to finish. I suspected all the characters and was pleasantly surprised at the ending.

sadie’s missing. she has been for a week now and pretty much everyone thinks she’s dead. that she was murdered. and everyone is guessing the same person.

but sadie’s five friends aren’t so sure, so they head into the woods to find her - their own little search party. but all of them have their own secret and not all of them will make it home alive.

THE SEARCH PARTY is one of those solid, middle of the road books. i liked it, but didn’t love it.

the characters were all fine, but also all hate-able, which makes sense since they’re all suspects and all have their own secret.

the way the book was written was probably my biggest hold up. you get chapters from all the characters, including the detective inspector. and i felt like the only chapters i really enjoyed were the DI’s. the friend chapters were one sided - like you were stuck in their head as they responded to police but you never heard the police side.

i liked the twist - i saw like half of it coming, but it took a long time to get to it (like the entire book, right?) there was just a lot of conversation that could’ve been cut out.

i think this would be a good starter thriller/mystery for people - it was never really scary and the end of each chapter kept you hooked.

3/5 stars.

"A missing girl. Five friends. Not everyone will make it home alive."

This mystery centers around Sadie Saunders, a popular teenager who has gone missing. Everyone in town believes she has to be dead after being gone for more than a few days. As the cops are searching the nearby woods and using dive teams to explore the bottom of the powerful river that winds around the sleepy town hidden in the middle of nowhere, everyone knows it's a body they're really searching for. Enter Fleet, the typical damaged detective with a heart of gold. This is the first time he's returned to his hometown since he lost someone he loved here a long time ago. The locals aren't shy about voicing their doubts about Fleet's ability as an investigator. They put pressure on the police force to solve the mystery of Sadie's disappearance and Fleet's boss is ready to lock someone up just to appease them, justice be damned. Obviously our detective's moral compass cannot allow this and so Fleet sets out to uncover the truth and apprehend the real party or parties responsible for Sadie's disappearance.

Meanwhile, rumors swirl around the town and seem to settle around Sadie's closest friends. There's Abi and Cora, who are constantly competing to be Sadie's BFF. Mason has been the subject of most of the rumors as he's Sadie's boyfriend and is known to have quite a bad temper. There's also Fash, a kind kid from a strict household, and Luke, Sadie's twin brother. These five teens take it upon themselves to conduct their own search party in the woods after coming to the conclusion that the cops are planning to have Mason take the fall. Poorly prepared, they set out into the wilderness to find their missing friend and quickly realize that they all have their own motives for wanting Sadie gone. Their distrust of one another erupts into violence and one member doesn't make it back from the search party alive.

The tagline for Simon Lelic's The Search Party immediately grabbed my attention. It was oozing with suspense, so I decided to give it a try. I'd previously read another of Lelic's works earlier this year, The New Neighbors, and while I liked it, it didn't blow me away. So I thought it only fair to give the author another shot. There were plenty of good things about this book. Mysteries involving crimes among a close-knit group of friends are a dime-a-dozen it seems, but Lelic's smooth writing and genuine characters made the familiar premise feel fresh and exciting. Each of the teens was presented authentically with his or her own realistically flawed personality. The dialogue seemed natural and kept the story moving quickly. On the other hand, Fleet's character was far too stereotypical to capture my interest. Throw him in the mix with a bunch of other mystery novel detectives and you'd never be able to pick him out. Besides the characters, the overall narrative was just one note for me. The climax never reached the level of intensity I was hoping for, partially because the final "twist" wasn't as unexpected as I think the author intended it to be. The Search Party was entertaining enough, but it's not a book that is going to stay with you long after you've put it down.

My Rating: ★★★☆☆

*Thanks to the author, Berkley Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!