To reside in a town on the wild and treacherous, yet undeniably idyllic and enticing, English coast is the stuff of ambitious dreams for many in the United Kingdom (and indeed abroad).
Such a (fictional) town, Ebbing (population 10 000), sits primly and seemingly demurely on the English coastline in phenomenally successful English author, Fiona Barton’s, latest novel, the crime thriller “Local Gone Missing”.
Set predominantly in August 2019 during a titanically sultry English summer (in addition to catapulting us back to 1999), “Local Gone Missing” hones effortlessly in on the lives of an eclectic assortment of Ebbing residents.
Those living in Ebbing pertinently includes the long-term residents, ‘blow-ins’ and those wealthy enough to have holiday homes, the latter inclusive of many London high-flyers.
As one of our central characters, Dee Eastwood (a middle-aged cleaner) muses to herself of Ebbing, “In a big city, people wash in and out, but here, people stay for generations. And the ‘cradle Ebbers’, born and bread, run things. They mark the unspoken rules that mark you out as a newcomer”. In addition, Dee reflects, ” there is a common enemy we can bond over: weekenders. The Ebbers hate them for invading their town and buying all the best houses for a handful of days a year. The newcomers hate them because the Ebbers do and it gives them something to talk about”.
Dee is a no-nonsense and often un-noticed cleaner in the residences she cleans, and is married to Liam, a plumber. They have a curious seven year old son, Cal and have called Ebbing ‘home’ for the past five years.
The town also is home to husband and wife, seventy-three year old Charlie (a businessman whose dealings are a great deal more than shady) and seventy-five year old Pauline Perry. Pauline is vocally unhappy in her relationship with Charlie; so much so that she has a much younger lover, Bram O’Dowd. Charlie and Pauline live in a caravan (or a “luxury park home” as Pauline calls it) while Charlie is pouring every last penny of his once-considerable fortune into ‘doing up’ an extremely run-down and overgrown enormous house near the caravan.
Devastatingly, Charlie has a thirty-eight year old daughter, Birdie, who lives in a nearby care home, “Wadham Manor”. Birdie, a once fiercely exuberant child and teenager, had been badly assaulted in a home invasion when she was eighteen, thus her need to be in care.
Forty-three year old DI Elise Ward has been residing in her cottage in Ebbing for a year, after being lured to the seaside enclave following the demise of a nine year relationship with DI Hugh Ward. Early in her stay in Ebbing, Elise was diagnosed with breast cancer, and is now on sick leave as she recuperates. She feels her brain is ‘foggy’ after chemotherapy, but loves to spend her days watching the goings-on in town through her window on to the street (It makes her relive the ‘old days’ on the job when she was doing surveillance).
Despite appearances of a holiday vibe, and activities like health-inducing yoga classes in the town, secrets ricochet endlessly and sinisterly around Ebbing and it’s environs. And secrets have a way of inevitably floating to the surface of the lives of Ebbing residents and visitors, along with the flotsam and jetsam that has been accompanying their ‘activities’.
When a couple of local teenagers overdose at a music festival in the town and end up in hospital, emotions run high. And, when Charlie goes missing, after having last been seen on the Friday night of the music festival, it seems he must have ‘slept it off’ somewhere, as he was hugely intoxicated. Elise has seen Charlie at the music festival and noted to herself that he looked vehemently distressed and fearful.
When Elise comes across the body of Charlie on the Monday after the festival, the Major Crime Team (murder squad) are brought in to investigate the case.
Elise, though on leave, has been surreptitiously investigating Charlie’s disappearance and then death for herself. When she is brought back from leave to work for the Major Crime Team again (she worked for them previously), and be formally in charge of the investigation in to Charlie’s death, presumed murder, Elise feels ‘home’ again (albeit not as confident at first as she used to be working).
None-the-less, Elise is in her element being back to her great love of being ‘on the job’ and cracking cases. As Elise is working on the Charlie Perry case, she goes into the toilets one day, and sees herself in the mirror. “Elise stared at the woman in the mirror. She was there. DI Elise King was back”.
Can Elise and her team get to the bottom of who and what caused Charlie’s death, and why he was so ‘freaked out’ the Friday night of the music festival? Are the crimes of the teenagers’ overdoses at the music festival and Charlie’s death in any way linked? Who are Stuart Bennett and Phil Golding, and what is their link, if any, to Ebbing? How were Birdie’s catastrophic injuries really caused all those years ago, and by whom, when she was a highly ambitious and independent eighteen year old? What do the wealthy ‘week-enders’ from London, Kevin and Janine Scott-Penington, have to hide?
Fiona writes with a razor-sharp intellect and effective grasp of the many vagaries and ebbs and flows of human existence; expertly delving into the sometimes dark depths of the human psyche.
“Local Gone Missing” is a searingly compelling and astonishingly well-constructed read. The twist and turns are many and frequently seismic in terms of their disturbances to the once (at least as far as appearances go), innocent and naive town of Ebbing.
Would I want to frequent Ebbing for a holiday? Possibly, but I would most definitely want DI Elise King as a friend and on my side if I ever got into any trouble there. And, if there was a crime committed, I would want Elise heading the case.
“Local Gone Missing” is a spectacularly stellar read. Five stars. I loved this book, and can’t wait to see what Fiona Barton writes next.
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