She’s loved by all who meet her. But someone wants her gone . . .
Then
When beautiful and vivacious Charlotte Salter fails to turn up to her husband Alec’s 50th birthday party, her kids are worried, but Alec is not. As the days pass and there’s still no word from Charlie, her daughter, Etty, and her sons, Niall, Paul and Ollie, all struggle to come to terms with her disappearance.
How can anyone just vanish without a trace?
Left with no answers and in limbo, the Salter children try and go on with their lives, all the while thinking that their mother’s killer is potentially very close to home.
Now
After years away, Etty returns home to the small East Anglian village where she grew up to help move her father into a care home. Now in his eighties, Alec has dementia and often mistakes his daughter for her mother.
Etty is a changed woman from the trouble-free girl she was when Charlie was still around – all the Salter children have spent decades running and hiding from their mother’s disappearance.
But when their childhood friends, Greg and Morgen Ackerley, decide to do a podcast about Charlotte’s disappearance, it seems like the town’s buried secrets – and the Salters’ – might finally come to light.
After all this time, will they finally find out what really happened to Charlotte Salter?
Book Info: Print length: 544 pages. Publisher: Simon & Schuster. Publication Date: 29 Feb 2024
My Thoughts:
I have listened to nearly all Nicci French’s standalone books on Audible, but when I saw they had a new book coming out I couldn’t resist the blurb and needed to read it. I also decided to pick this book as part of my Book of The Month (BOTM) group on Facebook and together with my closest 70 friends (!!) we started the book early February and met on line to discuss it in depth 3 weeks later.
Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter is a dual timeframe mystery about a beloved mother and wife who goes missing on the eve of her husband’s 50th birthday party at Christmas time in 1990, leaving no trace and a devastated family behind in a small village called Glensted.
When the body of a close friend and neighbour, Duncan Ackerley, is found a few days after Charlotte’s disappearance the police are quick to conclude this is a murder/suicide and close the case. However, the children of both families can’t and won’t believe it.
Nearly thirty years later, the children of Charlotte Salter and Duncan Ackerley reunite in the small town for their own personal reasons; The Salter children have returned to assist their father Alec move into a care home as he has dementia, and the Ackerley boys are back to make a podcast in the hope to clear their father’s name and find out what really did happen to Charlotte Salter?
Whilst this is a slow burning mystery, there is now a new police investigation happening since the podcast went live and this is headed up by DI Maud O’Connor who has been sent up from London to try to solve this case.
With many themes running through this family saga/mystery thriller from grief and depression; infidelity and obsession; mental health issues and suicide and dementia Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? spans 30 years in an atmospheric and emotional story and follows the devastating effects the disappearance of one woman has on her family and those around her.
