Published by Viking Books UK
Publication Date: 20th August 2020
Book Description:
16-year-old Sadie Saunders is missing.
Five friends set out into the woods to find her.
But they're not just friends...
THEY'RE SUSPECTS.
You see, this was never a search party.
It's a witch hunt.
And not everyone will make it home alive...
THE CHALK MAN meets THE HUNTING PARTY in this gripping story; witness four suspects as, alongside DI Fleet, you attempt to discover the truth about what happened to Sadie...
My Thoughts:
This book is written in an unconventional style and it therefore took me a while to settle in and realise what was going on. Where Cara Hunter successfully uses interviews and social media posts to help tell her story, this book uses purely the interviewee's responses during police interviews to tell the tale in the majority of chapters Because of this I found the overall story much more difficult to follow. The chapters from DI Fleet's perspective are written in a more traditional style and I found these flowed much better. Sections of the book felt as though it was the author's writing rather than language and phraseology a young person would use, the authenticity often switching within a chapter which I found off-putting.
The premise of the book is that a 16 year old girl is missing, feared drowned, and the local police force are focusing the search for her in the river. A group of her close friends have decided they know her far better and decide to form their own search party in another area, and it gradually becomes clear that this hasn't ended well for them.
None of the narrators is reliable and, where I usually love this in characters, unfortunately there are so many story threads that I just found it incredibly messy. I suppose this would be an accurate representation of how things would be for the police in a real-life case of this kind, however in a fictional world it came across a bit clunky.
I didn't dislike this book and I look forward to reading more from this author - I previously loved his book The House - but I'm not sure I would re-read this one.
About the Author:
Simon Lelic is the author of seven highly acclaimed thrillers: Rupture (winner of a Betty Trask Award and shortlisted for the John Creasey Debut Dagger), The Facility, The Child Who (longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger), The House, The Liar's Room, The Search Party and The Hiding Place. He has also written The Haven series for younger readers, twice shortlisted for the CrimeFest awards.
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