A man is trapped in a basement. He’s bound and gagged. Add the title – Local Gone Missing – and by the time we finish reading the vivid opening, our hearts are beating as fast as the man’s. As certain as we are that our day will end just we fine, we are equally sure that it’s not going to end well for the unnamed victim.
Fiona Barton’s newest novel, quickly follows on to introduce readers to first-person narrator Dee, the local housecleaner in the smallish seaside village of Epping. With the reader thoroughly hooked by the opening, Barton effortlessly reels us in as Dee handles chores for a dodgy couple who act wealthy, but the airs they put on seem to be getting pretty thin. We’re feeling all-too-familiar with Epping by the time we meet DI Elise King. We’ve met a cross-section of Epping’s best, as well as more than a few scraping by. Barton makes the reading effortlessly enjoyable, and the twists stack up as fast as the quirks in the townspeople. Everyone has something to hide, no monkeys and no exceptions.
The trick here is to make what proves to be quite complex seem as simple as a seaside holiday. Barton’s means of doing so is to pack the rafters with lots of well-written characters. From Ronnie, a mildly hyper busybody and gossip who steps up as a Watson to DI King, to Pauline, the local wishes-she-were-richer bitch to the missing local, Barton breathes just the right amount of life into everyone we meet to make sure we remember them the next time they come into view. She also mixes up the timeline, popping back and forth around the inciting incident. A fair number of those in view edge into awful, but it’s an awful lot of fun to see them from the distance. We’re all sort of awful in our own ways, yet we generally find ourselves likable; the same is true for Barton’s cast.
There’s a great deal of fun to be had in Local Gone Missing, but Barton keeps it just sober enough to stay on the right side of mystery. We can be reasonably certain that DI King will be back, and look forward to another seaside holiday in Epping. Barton makes it all so crisp and easy that in retrospect, readers will be quick to realize how skillfully it’s all been handled. She writes a novel about a vacation town that’s as memorable as a real vacation. By the time you’re done, you’ll be more than ready to book another stay in Epping.
Unsurprisingly, Fiona Barton is as entertaining as her novel when discussing the novel, and quite careful to mind the spoilers. Here’s a link to our conversation, but if you’re set in your deck chair and ready to listen, have a go by listening below at this moment. You’ll know if you need sunscreen.