1990
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?
Comment: I cannot remember anymore why I got interested in this story, one more mystery plot I somehow thought would make for a thrilling reading!
In 1990 Charlotte Salter is a mother of four, has a good enough but not happy life but her marriage hasn't been happy for a while. Still, she is the one who organizes her husband's birthday party and all should go as planned, but while everyone is apparently having a good time, Charlotte doesn't show up. Etty, the youngest child, is the one who worries the most and after a few hours, Charlotte still hasn't been seen, As the hours, then the days, go by, and no sign of her, hopes begins to ebb... Now, it's 2022 and after brothers Morgan and Greg, neighbors to the Salters all those years ago, decide to do a podcast about Charlotte's disappearance, someone dies at a terrible fire. In comes detective Maud, to investigate and she can't believe how incompetent the investigation in the 1990s had been... after all this time, can she find the truth?
This is the first story I try by this author, which it turns out, is a married duo, something I'm certain may people knew but not me. Anyway, I saw some friends have enjoyed the authors' books and, along with the blurb, it was probably why I've decided to give this book a chance.
The book is divided into three parts: one, in 1990, while people start realizing Charlotte never showed up and Etty, in particular, starts worrying and despairing, then part two in 2022, when the brothers decided to to a podcast, and the third part in the same year, but already when Maud arrives to conduct a new investigation. I'd say the first part was interesting to set up the plot and the mystery, the third obviously to solve it but to be very honest, the second part felt unnecessary to me. If what happens in that second part had been summarized in the third, for me it would have been enough.
My conclusion of this is that the authors chose to allow a long period to establish the characters and their personalities and gave the reader a chance to have a lot of information. Of course, when the truth is revealed, some situations depicted in this first part can seem to make a lot more sense, and it allows the reader to have those "aha" moments, in which a little detail, an apparent meaningless word can make the whole difference, if only we had read with more attention...
I kind of liked the first part but I also felt it dragged for too long, because at some point I was already tired - after all, it was obvious nothing would be solved yet - and when the second part came, I was doubly disappointed. In fact, I was ready to think this would not reach the 3 stars because not only were things lacking some interest to me, but Etty, who seemed to be the main character, didn't become a very likable character in 2022... and also, the book had been marketed as a Maud O'Connor mystery and Maud was not yet on scene, she only was introduced in the third part, just a little more than half way through the book.
Thankfully, Maud is a very competent investigator - I mean, I cannot believe detectives in 1990 could be that ignorant as it was made it seem here - and she quickly finds a way to implement her method of investigation. From this moment on, I was way more interested and eager to know what happened. Things which had seemed repetitive and unimportant suddenly had more reasoning than what we would expect, but this happens in pretty much any thriller/mystery, so... nevertheless, something about the dynamics between competent Maud and how she deals with others made the story feel more interesting.
I would say the true gem of this book consists on the investigation Maud conducts. What happened to Charlotte and who killed the person who died in the fire are certainly connected and when we see how and whom, it is quite an amazing experience, but not for its complexity. The reason for the crime and the disappearance is not a complex one with lots of secret agendas, but something way more simpler. One more of those cases in which the road investigating is more rewarding than closure. Although I can share I did shed a tear once a certain scene takes place...
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