A spellbinding locked-room mystery about a glamping trip gone horribly wrong when a powerful storm leaves the participants stranded and forced to confront long-held secrets and a shocking disappearance.
Max and Annie Kingsley have left the London rat race with their twelve-year-old son to set up a glamping site in the wilds of Cornwall. Eager for a dry run ahead of their opening, they invite three old university friends and their families for a long-needed reunion. But the festivities soon go awry as tensions arise between the children (and subsequently their parents), explosive secrets come to light, and a sudden storm moves in, cutting them off from help as one in the group disappears.
Moving between the police investigation, a hospital room, and the catastrophic weekend, The Search Party is a propulsive and twisty destination thriller about the tenuous bonds of friendship and the lengths parents will go to protect their children—perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley.
Book Info: 338 pages. Published in Jan 16, 2024 by Simon & Schuster
My Thoughts:
I first read Hannah Richell’s debut novel Secrets of The Tides in 2013 and for no reason whatsoever I seem to have missed the next 4 books of hers until her latest, The Search Party popped up on my radar.
Set in the wilderness in St Ives, a group of old friends reunite for a weekend of glamping with their families, Being a psychological thriller you know this isn’t going to be a quaint get-together roasting marshmallows and reminiscing of the good old days. It’s going to be full of secrets, lies, suspicion, guilt and tension and maybe even murder!
We know early on that something awful has happened as the book opens with a police interview and it’s clear someone has been hurt very badly.
With a huge cast of characters I was initially concerned I would struggle to keep up, but the author has provided a very helpful list of who’s who at the beginning of the book together with a map of the glamping site.
Because each of the main characters has such a unique voice and was able to retell their own version of events, the story became very easy to follow and I found myself unable to put the book down.
The Search Party was very atmospheric. The landscape and weather played a central part in the story bringing an additional level of urgency to an extremely volatile situation and the relationships between the families added simmering tension and hidden resentments which began to boil over.
The lengths some of the characters went to protect their children made me wonder how I would behave in the same situation and the overall theme of friendships and parenthood made this story more thought-provoking than the average “reunion thriller”.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story and would definitely recommend it to lovers of suspense fiction.
