Someone knows where she is… to her. When Frankie gets a call from Sophie’s brother, Daniel, informing her that human remains have been found washed up nearby, she immediately wonders if it could be Sophie, and returns to her old hometown to try and find closure. Now an editor at a local newspaper, Daniel believes that Sophie was terrified of someone and that her death was the result of foul play rather than “death by misadventure,” as the police claim.
Daniel arranges a holiday rental for Frankie that overlooks the pier where Sophie disappeared. In the middle of winter and out of season, Frankie feels isolated and unnerved, especially when she is out on the pier late one night and catches a glimpse of a woman who looks like Sophie. Is the pier really haunted, as they joked all those years ago? Could she really be seeing her friend’s ghost? And what actually happened to her best friend all those years ago?
Harrowing, electrifying, and thoroughly compelling, Local Girl Missing showcases once again bestselling author Claire Douglas’ extraordinary storytelling talent.
more
I was thoroughly gripped and kept shifting my suspicion of villainy from one character to another.
The setting is the seaside town of Oldcliffe-on-Sea. This is captured vividly with its amusement arcades, lido, fish and chip shops and sinister derelict pier, the scene of a tragedy that triggers the story. In the flashback scenes from 1997 you get a strong sense of the two female characters, close friends Frankie and Sophie, feeling oppressed by living in a small town and wanting to spread their wings.
Claire Douglas has created suspense brilliantly in Local Girl Missing. In fact reading the novel reminded me of watching a Hitchcock film. It is expertly plotted with some minor and major twists in the story which certainly took me by surprise.
Highly recommended.
A good thriller – I enjoyed the twists throughout the plot.
I love that one chapter is in the present and the next is the pass. In every chapter you think you found the person but then there is another clue that doesn’t add up to that person. You just want to read all at once because you just have to know.
Fast read.Good
While I did finish this book, I didn’t really fully engage because I never connected with the characters. While the ending was not particularly predictable, it still felt a little anticlimactic.
I really liked the writing and I really should have known what to expect from Claire because of her previous novel being twisted and that is exactly what this book does.
I really liked the plot it was very complex and the story telling was very complex and although we had one main focus which was the storyline of Sophie being missing and then is found dead. The subplots that went along with it and they were very interlinked and it worked very well. This book was really amazing and I really enjoyed reading it. The book was told in two points of views, Frankie who told the story of the present and the events that were happening in the story. Sophie then told the story of the past and what led up to her death. Frankie was a very unreliable narrator.
I really wasn’t a fan of Frankie’s character she was very unstable and I thought she was slightly delusional at one point. Frankie managed to convince herself that events happened differently to what they did. (Really trying to not spoil her. Sorry if vague). She believed her own lies that much, she didn’t really have any good points to redeem her, she was very possessive and at times didn’t treat the people around her right and as they should be taught.
Sophie, she could tell how Frankie was and once we find out a few secrets (Don’t want to say because of spoilers). Sophie begins to see what kind of person Frankie is and we can see how it goes from a very tight friendship to one where Sophie doesn’t know what to do and how to act around Frankie. I felt like in the parts that she told Frankie spent most of her time putting Sophie down and making her feel bad for how she looked and act. Sophie should have had more convinced and in the novel, we do see the change in Sophie.
Daniel is a brilliant actor I have so much to say about this but I don’t want to spoil you guys! You need to read this! Daniel was very much playing Frankie and I didn’t even guess it! I was so surprised and I loved him as a character. As I say I want to say so much more but do not want to spoil it for you.
In the story Frankie depicts Leon (the boy Sophie was dating) as very angry and unstable and that he just didn’t care about Sophie and that’s so far from the truth. He really did care about her and it showed not only in the past but in the future when Frankie began to question him over Sophie’s death. He didn’t want to bring up old past memories and the scenes where they were together it was really cute and I really enjoyed it.
It was a slight happy ending for Daniel, Leon, Mia and (someone else but Spoilers). I did not guess the ending, I didn’t guess anything in this story. I only guessed that Frankie was a little unstable but I didn’t guess anything that happened. I love it when I don’t guess, though! The epilogue was very clever it was told as if it was from a chapter in the book he was writing about catching a killer, it was very good and added to the story.
I haven’t finished reading this book because I am having a hard time getting into the story.
Very slow; really needed to speed things up a bit…
This book was different. It kept me guessing until the end. I recommend this book if you like a whodunnit!
Just bad, so predictable
Did not see the ending coming. Love the twist!
Wasn’t expecting the ending but their secrets kept me turning the pages.
Peurile writing.
A good read
Also very dreary. There was apparently no one in the story who wasn’t twisted into emotional anguished knots.
Very slow.
I never finished this one – very seldom do I stop reading a book, but this one was easy to drop.
I liked. Didn’t want to put it down.
Very well written. Enjoyed the entire story.