At the outset, this is what one would think would be the case when university friends of some twenty years take part in a weekend getaway, along with their spouses and offspring. That is until the holiday descends into a ghoulishly Machiavellian nightmare of undiluted mayhem, tragedy and darkly criminal acts.
These unforeseeable (or are they?) and unenviable events take place in phenomenal crime writer’s, Hannah Richell (she is a dual citizen of Australia and the United Kingdom, currently residing just outside Bath in England) latest exemplary thriller, The Search Party.
Max and Annie Kingsley have optimistically swapped their busy (yet routine and sometimes full of drudgery) lives as architects in claustrophobic and sterile London for the country life of Moroven Farm in Cornwall, close to the icy and treacherous Atlantic Ocean.
The forward-thinking couple have built a glamping retreat at Wildernest Campsite close by. Max points out to Annie, “We’ll only have to open the glamping business for six months of the year. The rest of the time will be ours. Coastal walks. Wild swimming……You can paint. Perhaps we can turn one of the barns into an artist’s space? We could run workshops and retreats, invite some of our creative contacts down from London”. Their reserved and emotionally sensitive twelve year old son, Kip, appears to be doing better in the lushly serene environs of his new home. Kip was adopted by Annie and Max when he was six, being rescued from a life of physical abuse by his original family, and grey and depressing foster homes. Kip is homeschooled, having been bullied previously at school, and suffering from sometimes unpredictable behavioural issues.
Annie and Max decide to invite their friends from university days (they are now in their early forties) to stay on the May Day weekend at Wildernest Campsite. It is to be a sort of trial run before they start taking paid guests. Their outspoken and at-times insensitive chum, Dominic Davies, (a reality television star who seems to think the world revolves around him at times) is fabulously wealthy and father to Scarlet (sixteen years old), Felix (fourteen years old) and Phoebe (six years old). Dominic’s ex-wife, Clare, is mother to Scarlet and Felix, whilst Dominic’s current wife, Tanya, for whom her appearance and the finer things in life are paramount, is Phoebe’s mother.
The laidback Jim Miller (a youth worker with ideas of running a food truck) is accompanied by his wife Suze (a high achieving counsellor, nutritionist and yoga teacher who runs a wellness clinic), and their exuberant children, Willow (fourteen years old), River (thirteen years old) and Juniper (nine years old). Jim, we are to learn, has some not inconsiderable problems. It seems “While she (Suze) charged about, spruiking healing and wellness, her own husband disintegrated at home in a puddle of lethargy”.
Dear friend Doctor Kira de Silva (a GP) at the age of forty-one has finally achieved her wish to become a mum. Baby Asha is five months old. Kira and Asha come in the car with Kira’s partner, thirty-two year old Irishman, Fred O’Connor.
Employed as handyman/assistant at Wildernest is young man and keen surfer, Josh Penrose. He is a godsend to Annie and Max. The Kingsleys’ have a gruff and abrasive neighbour in John Kellow, a dairy farmer. When the guests arrive on Friday, despite some being more agreeable to the weekend break at Wildernest Farm than others, it would appear that Annie, Max and Kip – and now all their friends and families – are solidly and undeniably ‘living the dream’.
When a more than unpleasant altercation takes place between two of the children, and between one of those children and an adult (not the child’s parent), tensions and hostilities ignite, tempers flaring.
Can the weekend be saved?
Can all parties let ‘sleeping dogs lie’?
Or is this the beginning of the end?
When secrets and misdemeanors are rapidly exposed, the flames of the already ignited and menacing blaze that burns amongst the group of friends gain traction. And a metaphorical wildfire ensues. A wildfire that shows no signs of being extinguished any time soon. The Saturday afternoon, someone goes missing. And the campsite families go beserk. As time marches relentlessly on, panic morphs into terror and animosity. A coming storm threatens the flimsy equilibrium even more. There is a crime of Shakespearean proportions and the death of someone.
Devon and Cornwall Police become painstakingly involved and people from the trainwreck of a weekend are interviewed by the no-nonsense Detective Inspector Sue Lawson, the thoughtful Detective Constable Lee Barnett and the driven Family Liaison Officer Patricia Haines.
What caused the terrible outburst by children and parents on the Friday night?
Who went missing?
Are they found, and if so alive or dead?
Is the death that takes place linked to who goes missing, or has another incident taken place?
Hannah ramps up the tension from page one, and fills the reader with a sense of impending dread and doom that only increases as one delves further into The Search Party.
Every page in this wise, yet confronting, novel exudes intelligence and provides formidable insight into the human psyche and condition. In all it’s vagaries of good and bad.
Themes of child abuse, depression, behavioural issues in children, teenage angst, adult egos, deception, child adoption and child paternity are covered expertly and thoughtfully.
Bravo Hannah! You had me turning the pages faster and faster the further I became immersed in The Search Party, and I hurried to the end as I just had to know everything that transpired and who was involved.
I promise you will love The Search Party. I was transported to a wildly beautiful, yet haunting, part of the English coastline. A place where (in this book) seismic ruptures occur in our protagonists’ lives.
I will be lining up to read whatever Hannah writes next.
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