She’s loved by all who meet her. But someone wants her gone…
1990: When beautiful and vivacious Charlotte Salter fails to turn up to her husband Alec’s 50th birthday party, her kids are worried, but Alec is not. As the days pass and there’s still no word from Charlie, her daughter, Etty, and her sons, Niall, Paul and Ollie, all struggle to come to terms with her disappearance.
How can anyone just vanish without a trace?
Left with no answers and in limbo, the Salter children try and go on with their lives, all the while thinking that their mother’s killer is potentially very close to home.
Now: After years away, Etty returns home to the small East Anglian village where she grew up to help move her father into a care home. Now in his eighties, Alec has dementia and often mistakes his daughter for her mother.
Etty is a changed woman from the trouble-free girl she was when Charlie was still around – all the Salter children have spent decades running and hiding from their mother’s disappearance.
But when their childhood friends, Greg and Morgen Ackerley, decide to do a podcast about Charlotte’s disappearance, it seems like the town’s buried secrets – and the Salters’ – might finally come to light.
After all this time, will they finally find out what really happened to Charlotte Salter?
For those of you who don’t know this bestselling sensation of two dozen thrillers, Nicci French is the pseudonym for the writing partnership of journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who also happen to be married. Better Reading’s Jane Tara was lucky enough to interview them about when they toured Australia last year. It’s a great interview: Sean and Nicci are both lovely people and their writing process is utterly fascinating. And it works. They continue to deliver gripping thrillers, about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Watch the interview here.
This time, the story moves from 1990, when Charlotte goes missing, and current day, with the ongoing impact that has had on her family and the launch of a podcast about the case. We all know how effective podcasts can be in solving decades-long mysteries and bringing justice to those left behind, and that’s the inspiration behind this.
It’s a compelling tale, with multiple layers, as it not only delivers several unexpected twists, but also characters carrying deep wounds after an unimaginable loss. Reading this was particularly poignant with the recent case of missing mother Samantha Murphy dominating the news here.
Nicci French masterfully structures this story, and it zips along at lightning pace. My advice is clear a day this weekend – Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter is an exceptional thriller.
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