An excellent and intriguing premise, and a solidly-written novel too. DI Fleet is engaging and likeable, and the mystery at the heart of the story has a great deal of potential.

However, this novel didn’t really work for me. I found the teenagers to be difficult to believe in – their relationships with each other and the way they interacted didn’t feel very authentic. I did wonder why they were friends at all. And I felt that the way the real story was revealed in the end wasn’t really effective. It just felt as though all the ins and outs were just relayed, with no human interaction or reaction.

Fleet, as I say, is a great character and his past trauma adds a real depth to him. I felt that this could have been more drawn out and explored.

It’s a clever idea with a lot of potential, but it missed the mark for me.

Having really enjoyed previous book by this author I was looking forward to reading this one. However I'm afraid I nearly gave up on this one, and only just managed to finish it. Just didn't engage me, and although I liked the character of the investigator I wasn't that much interested in the children. I also found it too slow. This may be my fault, I know my patience in reading has dipped slightly and I do need something to grab and engage me quiet quickly these days, but this one didn't. 2 and a half stars

A very interesting kind of thriller. Unlike anything I’ve read before. The characters are well written and I never saw the twist at the end coming.

A good read but not as good as I was expecting. Maybe because I have read many similar stories so am a bit desensitised. Definitely worth a read though.

Quite interesting premise of a missing girl's friends forming a search party to find her. I liked the idea of the story coming through the police interviews but the interviews quickly just became flashbacks. The detective and his backstory were a bit underdeveloped. I thought there were some interesting ideas, such as what happens to the other children when there is a particularly successful and favoured child in a family, but I didn't feel the novel pulled it off. The ending was quite good.

The description of this book feels quite familiar "16-year-old Sadie Saunders is missing. Five friends set out into the woods to find her ... not everyone will make it home alive" but to think this follows a well-trodden path would be a mistake. 

After Sadie goes missing her friends fall under suspicion and in an effort to find out the truth they go back to the woods  while the police are searching the local river and out towards the sea. The events that unfold are told from the friends' various points of view through interviews with the police after they are discovered in grim circumstances. What appears from the outside to be a solid group of friends displays fractures when put under pressure, all of the group have secrets and they're not exactly 'reliable narrators'. 

The police investigation, led by DI Robin Fleet and supported by DS Nicole Collins, brings its own interest as Fleet is put under increasing pressure to solve the mystery and find Sadie. To add to the intrigue Fleet has only recently returned to his home town and there are rumours and stories about his past that he needs to face up to. 

Twisty, thrilling and compelling - this was a great, atmospheric read.

A thrilling and compelling read perfect for getting lost in during the holidays. I couldn't put this down and look forward to more writing from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

First I would like to thank Met Galley and Simon Lelic for allowing me to review The Search Party. This book is told from six different perspectives and is a fantastic read. It keeps you hooked from the start and is very cleverly written. With twists aplenty it keeps you guessing till the final pages.

The setup of this story is straightforward, although the unravelling of the actual facts is a little more complicated than it looks in the beginning. We are thrown right into the midst of a secondary issue that was precipitated by a missing girl.
We have a close-knit group of friends, each hiding their own little (sometimes petty, sometimes not) secrets. The missing girl was almost the lynchpin that held them all together. In a sequence of police interviews, they tell and retell their stories which may not always be the same. With the central character missing, everyone has to learn their place anew. This ruffles quite a few feathers.
I must say that I struggle with the new normal for teenagers in fiction not yet out of school. All the characters and the characterizations have them in such adult situations. I wonder if that is the new reality all over the world ( or if it is just fictitious). If it is, that's not reassuring news.
I did not see the twists coming for the most part. The backstory of the investigator did not go anywhere. I thought there would be something more to his presence! It was an easy, if troubling, read, which meant I finished it in a few short sittings. This helped keep the atmosphere in which to best enjoy the narrative and feel for all the sorry people mixed up in it all.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

I love the way Simon Lelic's books hook me so quickly and find that I can't help but read them from cover to cover in one sitting. This one was no exception. Intense and enthralling it is just a great read!

A fantastic read that has lots of twists and turns. The storyline kept me gripped. It is written in a narrative way. You think you know what is going to happen and who the killer is and it changes. Kept me hooked.

A rollercoaster of a book
Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in return for an honest review. I found this book to be really interesting with twists and turns in the story keeping me interested. Id recommend this book as a good page turner and thriller. I'd seek out further books from the author also.
#TheSearchParty #NetGalley

If you enjoy the books by Karen McManus, you will also enjoy mystery/thriller. Everyone in this book has a secret to hide and you as a reader don't know who is telling the truth about what happened to Sadie.

A page-turner book, perfect for a relaxed summer afternoon!

A atmospheric slow burn thriller that had unforeseen plot twists and kept the reader engaged with the building suspense.

I didn't engage very well with the writing style and feel it didn't flow as nicely as it could with the switching of the multiple POV’s.

Overall, a gripping thriller with a plot twist you won't see coming!

This is a great suspense thriller, with twists and turns throughout the book.

It gets you hooked right from the very beginning and what I truly love about it ism it has several creepy moments too! Could not put this down, and its really gripping. I have not read anything from this author before, but I have now made it a mission to do so from now on!

I get the impression The Search Party started as a short story and was stretched to within an inch of its life in order to make a full-length novel. As a result, not much happens and the bulk of its content is useless information. All the teenagers sound exactly the same, they must all be part android because their memories are photographic beyond human comprehension and they all speak like they're early-middle aged. I figured out the killer at around the 20% mark and had to skim pretty much everything but dialogue around 50% because I was bored silly. I felt let down by the ending as none of the characters or events had any impact on me and the story just kind of fizzled out.

It wasn't terrible - I've read a lot worse - but I didn't enjoy it, so I'm giving it a middle-of-the-road 3 stars.

I would rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.

This was an interesting thriller. I found the interview portions, without the dialogue from the actual police shown, a really interesting way to tell the story.

I thought the author created good suspense but I thought the characters lacked depth and the ending was disappointing.

I quite enjoyed this book but found it very similar to one's I've read before the best of which is Force of Nature by Jane Harper. I found myself comparing the story with that, perhaps unfairly. Taken on its own and to while away some time in the sun, its not a bad read.

Sadie has been missing for days when her friends decide to take matters into their own hands. They're sure the police are looking in the wrong place so head to the woods....three days later someone is dead and none of them seem to be able to explain what happened. DI Fleet already has his work cut out looking for Sadie and dealing with his own demons. Now he needs to unravel the teenagers real reasons for heading out and what really happened.

After a slow start I really got into this novel. The teenage characters are well written and believable and it felt like I'd been reading about DI Fleet for ages...to the point I had to check if I'd read books about him before! But no, apparently not. But I truly hope there will be more. Atmospheric and tense, one to add to your TBR pile.

Unfortunately this book wasn’t for me and I struggled through it. I found it confusing at times and ended up skimming through it.