4 stars out of 5
Set in the small by-the-sea town of Ebbing, England, Elise lives is on medical leave from the police Major Crime Team following cancer surgery, but she stays in touch with her capable partner, Caro Brennan. One evening, in the middle of a town festival that a town bigwig forced on the locals against their will, two teenagers overdose on drugs and a local man - Charlie Perry - goes missing. Elise isn't supposed to be on the job, but she gets roped in by way of friends (in particular, her neighbor Ronnie). She soon learns that although Charlie is quite popular in the community and has an almost middle-aged daughter, Birdie, in a full-time care facility, he has more than a few secrets that he's trying hard for years to hide.
Readers meet other characters along the way, including community house cleaner Dee Eastwood, who because of her work is privy to all kinds of secrets (and, not surprisingly, has a few of her own). Chapters move from the present to the past and back again - constantly - a technique of which I'm not fond but which the author does very well in this instance (well, I'm not any fonder of it than I used to be, but in this case it was far less confusing than it too-often is).
For her part, Elise tries hard to investigate and avoid ruffling feathers of those who insist she shouldn't be back on the job - most of the time successfully. Near the end, she feels well enough to convince her supervisor that she can handle a return, by which time she and Ronnie have a pretty good handle on what's really going on - and the ending brings a bit of a surprise as well as "outs" a bunch of secrets and wraps things up nicely.
I enjoyed the book and recommend it, but I must say it tromps on the edges between being a police procedural and a cozy. Mostly, that's because Elise's neighbor Ronnie is obnoxious, pushy and won't take no for an answer (nor can Elise bring herself to utter that word to her friend) - a hallmark of just about every cozy I've ever read. I can't, for instance, imagine any professional police officer, even one off duty, allowing a civilian to be so fully involved in a department investigation except in a cozy. On the other hand, I will give the author kudos for her handling of the cancer issue; readers and the story's characters certainly feel empathy toward Elise and what she's going through, but at no time is she treated like a victim (nor does she behave like one except for the occasional - and totally understandable - lapse into a temporary blue funk). Bottom line? An entertaining read - and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy.
Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton (Berkley, June 2022); 383 pp.
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