Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French

 

When Charlotte Salter goes missing on the night of her husband’s 50^th birthday party her children are convinced something terrible has happened to her, she simply wouldn’t walk out on them. The police have no leads and when a local resident commits suicide a few days later they conclude that he killed Charlotte and, as a result of guilt, took his own life. Thirty years later the siblings return home, still unconvinced the police got the right man.

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? by Nicci French is a story told in three parts. It opens a few days before Christmas 1990. It is Alec Salter’s 50^th birthday party, everyone is present apart from his wife Charlotte. Alec doesn’t seem bothered and assumes she’s running late. The Salter children don’t appear to be particularly bothered either, apart from the youngest, fifteen-year-old Etty. I really felt Etty’s raw emotion as she tried to convince everyone that her mother wouldn’t abandon the family.

It transpires that the Salter marriage wasn’t a particularly happy one which would make Alec Salter a suspect, however, he has an unbreakable alibi, he was the centre of attention at his own birthday party. Alec comes across as apathetic regarding his wife’s disappearance, I certainly didn’t feel there were any sinister undertones to his behaviour. A lot of the time I felt he was under-utilised as a character, a little like someone who regularly walks across a stage just to remind you they exist.

Etty is the driving force who keeps the police and community searching for a mother she knows wouldn’t desert her family. Another reason for Etty’s insistence is that she doesn’t want to be left alone with her father. Etty’s siblings, Paul, Niall and Ollie are all older and have already left home or are about to. There is nothing sinister about Etty not wanting to be left with Alec, it is simply down to his cold indifference.

The middle section of the novel takes place thirty years later. Alec Salter is living with dementia and, despite having a live-in carer, can no longer remain in the family home. The siblings return home to clear the house and facilitate the move to a care home. We get to see how they have been affected by the lack of closure surrounding their mother’s disappearance. They’ve all been affected in some way. Etty left home as soon as she could and lived a risky lifestyle. She’s now a lawyer but choses to live alone, avoiding relationships.

The return home prompts a couple of their peers to start a podcast, hoping that it may prompt new clues in the disappearance to come to light. When a third death occurs the police realise that the original case needs to be reinvestigated.

The third section of the story involves the new police investigation. I found the tone of this section to be very different from the earlier parts of the novel and loved DI Maud O’Connor, the detective tasked with reviewing the case.

DI Maud O’Connor upsets quite a few people early on. The local police don’t appreciate someone from London being drafted in to oversee the investigation. A couple of the male officers in particular took against Maud as she rebuffed their advances before they knew who she was. The fact that she is young and attractive is also held against her. I liked the fact that Maud takes no prisoners, those members of the task force who are hostile towards her are given a chance, but one chance only. If they can’t work as part of a team she has no use for them.

As the evidence is re-examined and witness statements double-checked the family eventually finds closure.

Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? By Nicci French will be published on 29^th February 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for a review copy.