Deftly plotted crime thriller kept me entertained.

This is one of those books where you feel like you need a spreadsheet to keep track of all the characters so you can cross reference as you read. There are so many of them but eventually the loose ends all tie together and the conclusion is satisfying when you reach the denouement.

Told in multiple points of view and in a shifting timeline, the plot revolves around a missing local man who is revealed as a con artist who has destroyed many of the residents' lives in the seaside town of Ebbing. He's caught them up in financial schemes but now they want him to pay. There are a lot of suspects with plenty of motive, means, and opportunity to put the fix on Charles Perry. But who took care of him?

This is the first in a new series featuring Elise King -- a former DI who has been off on sick leave after having treatment for breast cancer. While recuperating, she and her neighbor do some snooping on the side, but then Elise goes back to her job and officially investigates the case.

I was able to listen to the audiobook while also following along in the e-book ARC provided by the publisher. The production was very well done using multiple female and male voices to give distinct personalities to all the many characters. The performances definitely enhanced my enjoyment of the book.

Favorite Quotes:

I mean, how long do you have to live here to be a local? Is there a secret waiting list? Do you have to wait for someone to actually die to take their place?

Strobe lighting flashed and the crowd pulsed in slo-mo. People too old to throw their hands in the air like they just didn’t care did so, the flickering lights hiding a multitude of dancing sins.

The squad called them King and Kong for a bit and Caro ignored it. “I’ve got thighs like barges and mad hair— it could be a lot worse. We need to pick our fights.”

She was small, sixtyish with a beaky nose and a lot of mascara, and she was wearing a T-shirt that read Old Age Is for Sissies.

She couldn’t go it alone at her age. She’d need someone to cherish her. She loved the word “cherish,” rolling it round her mouth and through her pouting lips.


My Review:

My hero worship of Fiona Barton’s brilliant yet itchy storytelling continues. Local Gone Missing was a twisty tale that kept me guessing until the very end. The storylines and characters were well-nuanced, compelling, and endlessly intriguing. I conjured and cast aside multiple theories as I perused but would never have come up with this topper. The woman has mad skills!

I'm putting Fiona Barton's Local Gone Missing firmly in my why-did-I-wait-so-long to read this category, but, with book two in the Elise King series being released, and I always read series in order, I knew it was time. It is a bit of a slow burn in the beginning, but once I became invested, it was pretty much a need-to-know situation. Full of twists, turns, and reveals, this series is classic Fiona Barton, and I loved every page of it. I'm already excited to get to book two, because I'm really enjoying getting to know Elise, and I know she has so much more to say,

A suspenseful, twisty crime novel, with a lot of back-and-forth in the chronology that, oddly, wasn't distracting or difficult to follow. The author writes convincing characters with credible backstories and lots of hidden secrets. Like her first book, The Widow, this one has an excellent, surprising twist or two. I especially liked two characters: DI Elise King, who has battled breast cancer and is trying to regain her equilibrium and make a successful return to the work that is her passion; and Dee Eastwood, Elise's cleaner, who cleans for many clients in the small town of Ebbing - and therefore knows a lot about what her customers try to hide from the world. I see that there is another Elise King book on the horizon, Talking to Strangers, and the quality of Barton's writing makes it one I'm looking forward to reading.

Engaging and entertaining. I was sure I had it figured out, but I was wrong. It was a little difficult keeping all of the characters straight. I would have to backtrack to see exactly who was talking and about whom.

This was a pretty typical police procedural with a missing person, mystery, lots of sordid suspects, red herrings and a twisty conclusion. Fiona Barton's fans will be pleased with this second in the series.

ehh this was a lot to keep up with - too many characters, too many side plots and a lot of back and forth between before and after. such a bummer because I have enjoyed Fiona Barton's prior books!

I listened to this book after I got the prerelease ebook from Netgalley. I couldn't get into it while reading the ebook, so I set it aside and never finished. I got the audio book later, and while I liked the narration, it was a difficult book. It dragged and didn't keep me engaged. I did finish, but wouldn't recommend tbis book from one of my favorite authors.

3.5⭐️
This book definitely had some good parts to it. Overall, some parts really shocked me. I kind of figured out pretty early on what happened. But there were times i thought I was wrong because of other things that happened in the story. Some of the story just seemed unnecessary and more of a filler than anything. In the end I enjoyed this one!

I started this one a few times but it hasn't managed to hold my interest at all so far. I keep having to restart. Maybe I'll come back to it when I'm in the mood for a sleepy slow detective novel, but I'm taking it off my shelves for now!

I hate to even write this, but LOCAL GONE MISSING was just not a book for me. I have read every one of the author's previous thrillers and adored them. However, I just couldn't get into this book.

Though it took me a bit to get into, the characters and setting are well-developed, the structure works, and the ending is satisfying. It's a different feel than Fiona Barton’s prior work because it is really more of a police procedural. I was sort of between 3 and 4 stars but went with 3 because it took so long to get into it and I really considered not finishing in the first third. The back half delivers and I'm glad I finished.

Setting and Structure

Local Gone Missing is set in the fictional seaside town of Ebbing. Ebbing isn’t exactly what I expected, which was a cozy town of locals divided against the more affluent visitors. Instead the town of Ebbing is full of some shady characters and local town gossip. It also has the affluent visitors but they aren’t as important to the story, which truly centers on the locals in Ebbing, many of whom are… well, shady characters, to say the least!

The structure is more typical for Barton’s work, with short chapter that alternate perspectives and timelines. Elise (who I would consider our main character) gets the bulk of the chapters, but we get a good amount from Dee (the town maid) and just enough from our missing character Charlie to keep things interesting. The past timeline starts seventeen days prior to the beginning of the present time and works towards it. There is quite a bit of backstory as well.

Plot and Characters

While Barton’s prior work centers around a journalist, Local Gone Missing centers largely around the town of Ebbing and DI Elise King who is on a medical leave recovering from breast cancer. Elise has always been passionate about her work as a detective, but her battle with cancer and a broken heart have left her rebuilding her life. Recuperating at her home in the aspiring resort town of Ebbing, Elise happens to find her skills needed sooner than expected when local man Charlie Percy goes missing. Though not officially a member of the local police, Elise begins to investigate on her own at the prompting of her next door neighbor Ronnie.

Charlie Percy is an interesting figure in the book. At first he seems like a saint for committing to care for his middle-aged daughter who was left blind and mentally handicapped after an attack when she was in her twenties. But all is not quite what it seems with Charlie. He is also married to ex-model Pauline (who is on her own a hilarious character in the novel) and she has dwindled his substantial income on a money pit of a house and the expensive care home he pays for his daughter to live in, Wadham Manor. We learn some from Charlie himself in the past before he goes missing, and we learn other things about him during Elise’s unofficial investigation after.

The other main character of the book (although she is sort of a side character who is featured like a main character) is Dee Eastwood. Dee is a housekeeper for many residents of Ebbing and she’s learned that the best way to keep herself employed is by keeping what she learns about the residents of the houses she cleans to herself. That doesn’t mean that Dee doesn’t pick up on things. In fact, she knows secrets and the truth about almost everyone in town.

Overall Thoughts

One thing I liked about Local Gone Missing was that the majority of the mystery and clues were based on conversations among characters rather than heavy procedural evidence. This benefited the circumstances where Elise isn’t exactly official investigating. However, this also mean the book is very dialogue heavy. In fact, it felt like very little was not based on dialogue and at times I did want a bit more internal thoughts from some of the characters.

At its core, this is a mystery about a small town full of gossip and a cast of characters who seem nice on the surface but who largely are not. It is a bit quirky and I enjoyed the way it wrapped up. It was a bit slow to get into and I almost put it aside but I’m glad I didn’t. The back half delivers!

My Rating: 3.5 stars

This book has a bit of a slow start in the first half. This is due to having to set the scene and introduce you to all the different people that live in this town that end up playing a role or know someone who does and plays a part in what ends up happening to Charlie.

"The little girl who cowered in terror deserves peace--and to know it's all over now."

Throughout this book we get multiple different pov's showing us what happened in the past as well as what is going on in the present time in the book. Primarily though the main character Detective Elise is just coming back from medical leave and is a resident in this small town. She knows several of the characters and even knew a little bit about Charlie, while this does make it a little more difficult at times, it also helps her in the end because she remembers things people have said in the past about Charlie and others in involved in what happened to him.

"If the plan doesn't work, change the plan, never the goal."

Overall this book is enjoyable, but again very very slow start the first 50% is just setting the scene and getting to know everybody. The last 50% is solving the crime and actually learning who Charlie really was and how many people he has hurt over the years. I thought the killer could have been anyone in this town and it did ultimately come down to being several different people who all individually played a large part in what happened to him that night. Elise was a good investigator and it was nice in some ways that she had connections in this town as when the case really started going it was easier to put together because of things she had been told in the past and who she knew interacted with him regularly. Elise's neighbor Robin was so kind as well and helped Elise through one of the hardest times in her life and makes a pretty good amateur detective herself in the end.

This book will be good for mystery lovers who like a lot of background information and don't mind a slower story.
"The invisible cleaner who sees everything. Who cleans up everything. The messes, the filth."


(Read a finished copy from the library).

Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton is a missing person story set in the small seaside town of Ebbing where there is a distinct line between the "locals" and the "weekenders". The locals like their town and don't want to see any changes, but the wealthy weekenders are buying some of the worn down bungalows and renovating them. One of the newcomers to Ebbing wants to do something fun to draw even more people to the small town so it will get noticed as a great vacation spot. So they decide to hold a music festival, which, of course, the locals strongly oppose.

This missing person story is not truly about a missing person. While we find out that a local named Charlie goes missing after attending the first night of the festival, it turns out that there are a lot of events that go back many years that all come to light around the time of the festival.

I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed the three different narrators: one for the male characters, one for Dee (the local housecleaner) and one for Elise (a police detective on medical leave who is ready to get back to work but is dealing with some brain fog issues after chemo). I really enjoyed Elise's part of the story - seeing how she was poking around, trying to find out what happened, trying to get back to work. The procedural part of the story was really intriguing.

This book didn't stand out to me very much. It was a good book, an okay mystery, and the audiobook had engaging narrators.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

The blurb of this book sounded very interesting and I was in the mood for a good detective novel but unfortunately this book failed to keep my interest once I started it. I read about 50% of the book but I couldn’t get invested in the mystery nor the characters. So this is a dnf at 50%

There's something about a good detective novel where you feel you are along for the ride with the detective. This book was like this for me. I felt that as the clues were unraveling I was the sidekick trying to help determine who our murder was and what as the motivation. I also really enjoyed the setting of this book, a small seaside town where the residents do not want to see their town destroyed by mansions and big festivals/events. Fiona Barton does a fantastic job of fleshing out her characters and also not adding in so many you get lost. I enjoyed her descriptions of the setting and it made feel like I was there seeing everything for myself. This is a great book to take to the beach or pool and relax and get lost in someone else's issues for the day.

This story interweaves several mysterious events to keep you guessing until the end. The characters are interesting and layered, but there were quite a few to keep track of. Aside from that, I found this to be a quick read that had a more classic mystery which was a nice departure from the psychological thrillers in large number throughout adult fiction. Thanks to NetGalley & Berkley Publishing for this ARC. This is my honest review.

Thank you @tandemcollectiveglobal and @penguinrandomca for inviting me to join the read along for Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton. This one was on my list because I loved The Widow so it was fun to join a group chat with other mystery fans! Scroll through to see the read along cards and prompts if you want to join us!

Local Gone Missing has multiple POVs, and short chapters so I moved right through. Perfect for hot summer nights while you wait for the house to cool down a bit.

Great read, sometimes thrillers are to easy to figure out but this one was twisty enough to keep you enthralled in the story and attached to the characters. I really like thrillers like this that cover the small town vibe

From my blog: Always With a Book

I have been a fan of Fiona Barton since discovering her debut novel, The Widow, which was part of her Kate Waters series. I read that entire series and while I have been hoping to see more books in that series, I was just as excited to see a stand-alone from this author.

This is a slow-burn of a mystery that has a lot of moving parts. Part police procedural, part murder mystery, we meet a whole cast of interesting characters which keeps the suspect list high. I loved the small-town vibes and how the detective, Elise King, who is supposed to be on leave due to illness, cannot help herself from being drawn into the case when a local goes missing.

Moving back and forth in time to before Charlie vanishes and the investigation, this story keeps you guessing as to where it is heading. While some things ended up being a bit predictable, I was surprised by a few twists. I’m not sure if this is the beginning of a new series or just a one-off but I sure would love to see Detective Elise King again! I really liked her grit and determination to solve this case despite not even being fully back to work yet. Either way, this was a clever story and I cannot wait to see what this author writes next!