3.5 stars, rounded up
Local Gone Missing is Fiona Barton’s fourth book and I’ve loved the two I read. So, I was curious to see what she’d do with this stand alone story.
DI Elise King is on medical leave for breast cancer. She's anxious about returning to work, as she still has chemo brain. She’s a bit bored, so when a neighbor starts poking into the disappearance of a local man after a music festival, Elise joins in.
At about halfway through the story, Elise is called back in to take over the actual police investigation. I found Elise an interesting character. She’s fully fleshed out. I’d be happy to have her re-appear in another book. And Ronnie, her neighbor and cohort was a hoot. I was sorry that she sort of disappeared in the second half of the book.
This book has a lot of moving parts. It’s told from multiple POVs and covers both the past leading up to the man’s disappearance and the search in the present. This is a town where everyone has secrets, none more so than the missing man. The book demands that you pay attention to keep up with all the moving parts. Barton gives us lots of possible suspects and red herrings. I can’t say that it all hung together as smoothly as I’d like.
My thanks to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing for an advance copy of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for a review.

Fiona Barton is a GREAT writer!!I would love to have a conversation with her, because her mind is awesome!! From The Widow, which I adored, to this one, she is so imaginative and you just don't see the twists coming!

Elise King is, or WAS, a highly successful detective, or was, until an unexpected breakup and an even more staggering diagnosis set her world askew. Now she is living in a small community where everyone knows everyone and constantly gossips about it all. She is new, so she doesn't know many people, but her cleaning lady and her neighbor know EVERYONE and are filling her in on all things Ebbing.

So when a local man goes missing in the midst of a music festival, which most of the town had opposed, and later is found murdered on his own property, no one quite knows what to think. And everyone has a theory.

Elise's detective's instincts can't help but be interested and she is soon put in charge of the investigation, although she is supposed to take it easy. But how do you do that, when things are going on all around you, and you are trying to catch up?

The roots of the crime seem to be set in a 20-year old home invasion and theft, but how does that all fit in? We got the clues along with Elise, but she is a MUCH better detective than I am and I did NOT the final outcome coming.

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I had to sit on this one for a bit while I pondered how I felt about it. And I think it’s easiest to break down my thoughts in point form! Here we go:

Likes:
- Unique characters with a smidgen of diversity. Our MC is a breast cancer survivor grappling with her imminent return to work as a detective and her own mortality. As well, we had a same-sex couple, and characters from different classes of income.
- Multiple points of view and dual timeline of events. I always love when a book is formatted in this way as I feel we get more depth and a wider scope of the plot.
- Ronnie. I loved her and I felt in my soul that she’s my spirit sister (or perhaps spirit grandmother is more apt given her age!) with her love of true crime, situation board and crime-solving aspirations. I wish she was more than a secondary character!

Dislikes:
- I found the plot to be too busy and the motivating factors to the main crime didn’t get the attention they needed.
- There were unnecessary storylines added in and I felt those took distracted from the core of the story.
- I found Charlie’s storyline to be slightly unrealistic and that threw me off of believing it’s plausibility.

Overall, I liked most of the characters and their dynamics but was left overwhelmed by the busyness of the plot and having to sift through to piece it together.

This story is filled with interesting characters who cross paths in a small seaside town. It seems like a small boring town at first glance, but things are never what they seem. A great read about past sins that never truly went away.

Police Detective Inspector Elise has had some difficult issues to deal with. Her long-term romantic partner dumps her. Then she's diagnosed with breast cancer.
Surgery, followed by chemotherapy has left her tired and depressed and very bored being on medical leave.
When a popular local man disappears she enlists her neighbor to unofficially investigate the case. While searching for clues she discovers the
body of the missing man.
There are multiple suspects, all of who have secrets they don't want revealed.
Sorting out multiple motives and relationships is just the medicine Elise needs.

Local Gone Missing is what mystery and thriller readers would refer to as an old fashioned thriller. Suspense packed plot, mystery with many layers to uncover, intrigue, murder, quiet small sea side village with great character building and storytelling.

The story follows a successful and driven Detective Elise King who happens to be on medical leave after a diagnosis that has left her unsure of what’s next. Her small home town of Ebbing is growing in more ways than one, there is tension everywhere. Weekenders are changing the town's old bungalows into luxury homes and the locals are not happy.

Dee Eastwood is a house cleaner who is usually in the background, giving her the opportunity to see and hear everything while being ignored.

When a giant music festival leaves 2 teens overdosed on drugs and a man missing. Elise can help but let her policing instincts take her back to her work to find answers. That is when she finds out that despite the town of Ebbing being small it is full with secrets that run deeper and darker than anyone would’ve imagined.

I enjoy how it's not truly a fast pace read. The author did a great job creating a detailed setting, the stories of the characters between past and present, relationships and ties, atmosphere and overall storyline. Giving us hints and connections between everything. The author did a good job with this, I felt like I was trying to put the pieces together. Leaving me completely engaged.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

This novel is a complex mystery and police procedural where Detective Elise King investigates a man's disappearance in a seaside town.

If you get confused easily and don't like herky-jerky timelines you might want to avoid this one. I didn't mind the past/present changes as they add to the suspense and force you to think, to allow the puzzle pieces to slowly align as the clues unfold. The story does drag a bit in places, but overall a worthwhile read.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Berkley for an advanced copy of Local Gone Missing for my unbiased evaluation. 3.5 stars

I got this from Netgalley. It was not at all what I expected. It had, originally, a lot of promise, based on the synopsis. The chapters were character based, alternating, which is ok. The prologue begins with the actual victim, inside his thoughts and efforts to free himself. Seemed great at this point, but within the first third of the book it went a little crazy. Some of the language, I am not used to, like for example the word "caravan", I found out is a trailer or mobile home.

What was odd for me was the "town of Ebbing" wanting a music festival to put them on the map. If people want to put a town on the map, it surely wouldn't be to get a music festival in town, make it look like trash, have the aftermath and then they pull out and leave. Does the town go back to normal? One yearly festival, us American people can think Coachella. The Valley goes back to being the same once people leave and the mess in the aftermath is disgusting.

This is what made me label it a DNF- the cleaner, who knows everyone's business, doesn't share or gossip, so a Detective is going to try to make her gossip.

Just got over this one pretty quick and cut my losses

This books gets a solid 4 stars! There were parts of the story that were a little confusing to me because the book was from so many different points of view, but I thought the ending wrapped up really well and it was overall very well told.

This character-driven crime mystery kept me reading and wondering who committed the murder right to the end. At times the multiple timelines were a bit much, but the writing style and the view of life in a seaside British town kept me engaged. There were a number of characters to keep track of, but they were interesting people, well-written and convincing. Not my favorite by Fiona Barton, but a worthwhile read.

Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton was a good thriller with just the right amount of twists and turns. The book is fast paced and hard to put down. The characters are a mixed bag of likable and not so much, but are well drawn and provide many possible suspects of the crime at the heart of the story. My only struggle was with the ending which was a disappointment for me. However, I like this author and will definitely look forward to her next novel as well. This is an enjoyable read and will appeal to most who like to try to guess who dunnit. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really enjoy Fiona Barton’s thrillers and this one was a lot of fun to read. There is a cast of suspicious characters, some unlikeable, some sympathetic, and some you can’t quite pin down. This cast is led by a sidelined detective, Elise, who is a great main character, and her hysterical sidekick neighbor that brings levity to every scene she’s in. Twists and turns abound and you aren’t quite sure of how it all fits together until the very final pages. This was definitely one of those “you can’t put it down” books.

I finished this one in two days. A seaside English murder mystery filled to the brim with meaty characters.

Elise King is a successful and ambitious detective--or she was before a medical leave left her unsure if she'd ever return to work. She now spends most days watching the growing tensions in her small seaside town of Ebbing--the weekenders renovating old bungalows into luxury homes, and the locals resentful of the changes.


The back and forth on the timelines and the numerous amount of characters stalled the storyline for me a bit.
The premise was intriguing but I had a hard time finishing this one as fast as the others from this author.

In the small seaside town of Ebbing, nothing is quite as idyllic as it might seem. Especially when a well-liked local man suddenly goes missing and a web of tangled secrets seem to abound.

Boasting an intriguing premise and several interconnected players, author Fiona Barton has delivered a complex, multi-layered mystery that is engaging from start to finish. “Local Gone Missing” has all the requisite elements that make for a compelling story, including flawed characters and a trail of breadcrumbs leading the reader towards a satisfying (albeit, somewhat predictable) conclusion.

This is the second book that I have read by Fiona Barton, and I have been pleasantly surprised both times by her ability to write a compelling story that I was hard-pressed to put down. If you are like me and enjoy a good mystery with many moving parts, then be sure to check this one out. You won’t be disappointed!

A perfectly paced procedural!
Detective Elise King is on medical leave when a giant music festival invades the town of Ebbing and results in teen overdoses and a mysterious death. Still homebound, Elise Begins a behind the scenes investigation in the small town, questioning and watching with a careful eye.

It's a true English mystery with points of view from multiple characters. There's a bit of that cozy investigation genre as Elise works with her neighbor but we return to true procedural soon enough. Plenty of town-y types and a few villains as well. I was personally surprised at the ending!

If you like procedurals and just love British mysteries #LocalGoneMissing is for you!
#Berkley #BerkleyPublishing #netgally #NetGallyeREads

This was such a compelling thriller that kept me guessing the whole time! I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen until I got closer to the conclusion and the the ending gave me chills!

This is my second Fiona Barton novel and I love how she can weave multiple perspectives together in such a seamless way. She really makes you love and empathize with the main characters, even when you never know them as well as you think you do.

This was such a wonderful, fast-paced book, and certainly not the last Fiona Barton book I’m going to read!

I usually love books by this author, but this one falls short.. it was a challenge to keep reading at times. The plot was okay but too many characters to keep track of. Thank you for the ARC.

What do you do when you are used to being in charge and cancer decides to tell you who is boss? For Detective Elise King, it is unbearably hard. Besides being off work for treatment, now that she is almost cleared to return, she doubts that her brain and body are as capable as when she left. Her thoughts are foggy, and she doesn't know if her stamina will return. She has some very real concerns but then her old life comes calling.
She now lives in Ebbing, a small town where nothing much happens, until it does. Two teenagers overdose at a concert, that a part-time resident brought to this town. Did he and his friends bring drugs too? The locals are sure this is what happens when arrogant new money moves in.
Then Charlie Price, an elderly man goes missing. No one in town has a bad thing to say about him, but his public persona seems to be made of smoke and mirrors. His contractors go unpaid, and his daughter's expensive care home requires payment. Did he run out of options and flee or is there more to the story than we know?
Elise and her neighbor start an informal investigation and before long Elise is being called back to work. She is determined to do her job the same way as before and refuses to cut herself even a little slack. She could use a break though because there are plenty of suspects
Ebbing was almost like another character since the locals and the weekenders made for an interesting and realistic dynamic. I felt sorry for Elise for probably the first 2/3 of this book, then as she regained control, I was rooting for her to solve these cases and get her old life back.
I wouldn't mind seeing Elise again which to me is a sign that I enjoyed the book. There were a couple of threads that seemed to drop rather abruptly, but the mysteries surrounding Charlie and the teenagers were wrapped up nicely.

I was lucky enough to win an advance copy of Fiona Barton's latest, LOCAL GONE MISSING, through a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thanks for the sneak peek!