a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑  When I read the blurb for No One Home it sounded pretty fantastic for nine people, living in a four-household Yorkshire village, to disappear on Halloween leaving no clues behind. "How can that be?', I puzzled. This mystery hooked me and lead me down the path of another thriller series of which I had not read a single book previous. As this is book 10 in the David Raker series there was plenty of backstory unknown to me. Maybe not the best place to jump into the narrative stream but I did and am no worse for wear. It would have be good to go back a book to see what brought David to where he is at the start of this novel but it wasn't a deal breaker for me as the mystery unleashed its siren song...

Do you remember how I waxed lyrical over 18 Below by Stefan Ahnhem? This, though seemingly as unlikely as that, is just as engrossing, if not more so. I was recently on holiday in Cornwall and kept finding excuses to hide away with this book to make sense of it. I simply had to know what happened!

In No One Home David is brought the mystery of our 9 villagers by his compatriot Healey, who is, himself, a mystery worth reading about in the previous book. Whilst these chaps investigate the missing villagers we jump to Jo Kader in Los Angeles in 1985. Unexpected as it was hers was a very satisfying story being the only woman detective in the LA Sheriff's Department. The bridging of our two story lines was pure genius, excellent in execution. The 'Oooooooh, right. Now I get it' moment was a real revelation and made me page back numerous times to see if it panned out. A great time-jumping exercise that kept my brain fit. So much happened after the pieces fell into place - brilliantly stressful stuff - and the end... Wow! I didn't see that coming but am already salivating for the next novel. Thank you, Tim Weaver for a such a gripping beach read! I loved it.