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.

Sadie Saunders has gone missing, she has been missing g for 6 days and her close friends decide to go looking for her in the woods as they think the police are looking in the wrong place.

The police are called out to the woods where they discover the teenagers and a body that is not Sadie. What has happened to the distraught teenagers?

I was hooked by this book and stayed up late, desperate to find out how this great story ends, turning the pages not knowing how it would end!!

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

This was a real jigsaw puzzle. Lots of twists and turns, lies and omissions. Kept me totally absorbed , following the clues and trying to work it out. Who to believe and who was protecting whom. Very comprehensive conclusion.

The story focusses on five 16 year olds: Abi, Cora, Mason, Fash and Luke, who are all coming to terms with the disappearance of the sixth member of their group – Sadie, who also happens to be Luke’s twin sister.
We start six days after Sadie goes missing suddenly from her bedroom, with very little trace, and the police are no closer to finding her. Convinced they powers that be are looking in the wrong place, the friends take it upon themselves to look for Sadie. What starts out as an innocent search party quickly becomes something far more sinister, and you’re left not knowing who you can trust, or what you can be sure you know.
This is the first book I’ve read by Simon Lelic, and can confidently say it’s not going to the last. I assumed I’d find it difficult to really connect with any of the characters, given their ages; however, the style in which this was written really worked. Told from individual character perspectives, in the style of one-sided conversations with the police, I felt suitably removed to just watch the story unfold.
The only downside of this approach was when the narrative focused more on the police investigation, and the personal life of Fleet. It was a quick jump to a different style, which at times felt confusing and took a while to adjust to.
Generally speaking I found this to be quite a gripping story, well written and pacey. If you want a good whodunnit, with a decent amount of tension and suspense, then this will definitely tick all of your boxes. My only gripe is possibly that the last few chapters felt a little flat, compared to what had gone before, so it was anti-climatic in some ways. That said, it was a good read, and I would happily recommend it to those who enjoy the genre.

A sixteen year old girl is missing in the woods and the search is on to find her.
The story is told from the Detective Inspector's perspective but also from the five close friends, who decide to instigate their own search for her. Some of whom have their own agenda.
A little bit hard to get into at the beginning but a good psychological thriller, twists and turns right up until the end.

A novel that crept me out in more ways than one. The woods, the remote location, the weird behaviour of teenagers. Then the search for the missing girl the frantic phone call at the start of the novel. Arrggh! ha it was all well done but I did need a proper sit down by the end.

Sadie is 16 and has been missing for six days. The police are looking for her in the harbour and river but her friends decide to go and look for her in the woods. Why? What do they know? And what can go wrong?
The story is told from several people's perspectives including the police and the youngsters.
Just who is telling the truth and who is hiding what? There's a lot of intrigue here and the threads that link characters past and present are soon knotted so you don't know who knows what.
The sense of time and place just builds and builds to a great level and add in that sense of foreboding and that dark current of something very wrong indeed and you have yourself a good thriller.

You might never want to walk in the woods again with your friends though!

Although I found this a little slow at the beginning, once it had gathered pace I was gripped. I was unable to put this down and had to keep going, with no idea what way the story was going to go. Right to the very end I was kept guessing and loved that it was not at all predictable.

This is a detective story told from the position of the senior officer and also told as flash back by the young people involved. This made following the story difficult at first as my download omitted the headers telling when the police officer section restarted. having recognised this - it became easier to follow.
I felt that the story was a little slow to start but I enjoyed the second half and it was interesting to discover the the personal issues around the character of the lead policeman.
The story keeps the identity of the body hidden until the final few chapters which made me keen to read on and discover more details.

Recommended.

This is an intriguing book with several threads cleverly intertwined. Sadie has gone missing and a group of her teenage friends go to the woods to try to find her. Each has a different reason for being there and each suspects one of the others is involved in her disappearance and possibly murder. The author demonstrates a remarkable insight into teenage behaviour,worries and relationships. The book is largely 'dictated ' by each teenager in turn and that works very well as a way of building up the tension and revealing the unexpected conclusion. This book is a considerable achievement and is likely to have many enthusiastic readers. It deserves them.

Teenager Sadie Saunders has been missing for a week and while the police search has found her bag near the river little else has been discovered.
Her friends set off to search for her, including her boyfriend and her brother, hoping they will do better. Some are more keen than others on taking part and some certainly go better equipped.
From the outset the search seems to take a sinister turn. Possible sightings of someone watching them, mobile phones taken and water bottles emptied. One of them has brought a knife and one of them will not return from the search.
The story follows both the teenage search party and the investigators, with the subsequent police interviews told with the narrative only from the teenagers. I found this an intriguing style; a modern style of writing.
I liked the character of Detective Fleet and the plot twists with the group of teenagers. I didn’t guess what was going to happen and the ending was good. I did find some of the switching between narratives confusing though and for that reason have given this 4 stars.
I would certainly read more by this author.
Thank you to Netgally for a chance to review this novel.

4-5 stars rounded up.

This is another really good read from Simon Lelic. Sadie Saunders, 16, has been been missing for six days. Her friends Abigail Marshall, Cora Briggs, Fareed Hussein (known as Fash), Mason Payne and Sadie’s brother Luke are convinced the police are looking for her in the wrong place. They are currently using divers and searching the river towards the estuary in this harbour, seaside resort. The friends believe she is in the woods and so form a search party and slope off without their parents knowledge. What can possibly go wrong? Quite a lot actually. The police investigation is led by DI Rob(in) Fleet and DS Nicola Collins with Superintendent Burton urging them to find Sadie and /or charge someone especially as pressure is growing in the community and the press. The story is told from several perspectives including Rob Fleet and the search party youngsters.

There’s a lot to like in this really intriguing novel. It seems impossible to work out who amongst the search party is telling the truth as they all tell so many lies. The front runner for the crime, if indeed there is a crime, is one of the search party but Rob has grave doubts as so much just doesn’t add up. The plot is good, it keeps you asking questions, it’s well written and full of twists. There’s plenty of creepy atmosphere as much of the search takes place in the deep woods outside the town and there’s a lot of suspense created here, added to which several very mysterious events occur. There’s interesting dynamics between the teenagers too as they blame each other when things go wrong or get very scary and a lack of trust grows between them. The characters are really good especially DI Rob Fleet. . He’s very dogged, intuitive and intelligent and is unafraid to differ from his boss and stand his ground much to Burton’s wrath. Rob has a past in the town which plays an important role in the drama and this adds an extra dimension. There’s sadness between him and his wife Holly which also makes Rob seem very human. The finale is very exciting and I didn’t see that one coming as I think I made too many assumptions along the way! I like how Rob makes peace with himself at the end too.

Overall, a really good crime, suspense thriller with all the requisite twists and turns in the plotting that fans of the genre so enjoy! Recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for the Arc.

I love kids/teens go into the woods and something bad happens stories. They're my weakness and i've read quite a few. This however is going to stand out thanks to the brilliant twists. Sadie is missing and you'd think that would be the main mystery in this story but you get double trouble as five of Sadie's friends go off into the woods to try and find her. I was gripped by Lelic's writing and lost count of the amount of times i changed my opinion as to what had happened. Brilliant story!

A read in one sitting psychological thriller that was pitch perfect for me - I love a good group dynamic, a whole bunch of secrets and a well written twistier than twisty plot all of which Simon Lelic serves up here brilliantly. 

I genuinely wasn't sure what the resolution would be this was an excellent piece of plotting in that regard given there were finite possibilities given the set up. Very good indeed. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Fuller review near publication.