Book Review for Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton

 Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton

Hardcover, 384 pages

Publication: June 14th 2022 by Berkley Books

Genre:  Mystery, Thriller, Crime

Taken from Goodreads:  Detective Elise King investigates a man's disappearance in a seaside town where the locals and weekenders are at odds with each other in this rich and captivating new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow.

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.

Elise can only guess what really happens behind closed doors. But Dee Eastwood, her house cleaner, often knows. She's an invisible presence in many of the houses in town, but she sees and hears everything.

The conflicts boil over when a newcomer wants to put the town on the map with a giant music festival, and two teenagers overdose on drugs. When a man disappears the first night of the festival, Elise is drawn back into her detective work and starts digging for answers. Ebbing is a small town, but it's full of secrets and hidden connections that run deeper and darker than Elise could have ever imagined.

My Thoughts:  A good thriller is a book that I cannot put down, a book that I look forward to reading, and a book that I talk about when I finish.   Fiona Barton wrote exactly that book.   I picked up Local Gone Missing and I read page after page, when I was not reading I was thinking about reading, and as soon as I finished I told my neighbor that she needed this book.  

I looked forward to reading Elise’s POV more than the others.  I felt like she had to most to offer the case and I was invested in figuring out what was happening in this town.   I love how she methodically put what she found together to figure out where to head next, who to talk to next, and work to solve the mystery.   Where was the man who disappeared?   Who brought the drugs into the festival? 

I am a fan of Fiona Barton, I have read many of her books and look forward to more from her.   I always recommend her as an author and I recommend Local Gone Missing. 

**Thank you Loren Jaggers at Berkley Books for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

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