Saltwater Mansions

The Woman Who Disappeared and Other Untold Stories

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Saltwater Mansions

By: David Whitehouse

Narrated by: David Whitehouse

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About this listen

'Genre-bending, genius . . . A superb, intoxicating book'
Telegraph

'Deliciously twisty. I raced through it in one evening'
The Times

'A proper read-it-in-one-go book, opening up an advent calendar of lives behind the doors of a block of flats'
Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt

Margate is in the grip of a heatwave when David Whitehouse stumbles across the mysterious story of a local woman who lived on the ground floor of Saltwater Mansions, a block of flats not far from the sea. On paper, Caroline Lane was unremarkable. She paid her mortgage every month. She always paid her bills. But nobody had seen or heard from her for 13 years, and no one had ever come looking. She had disappeared completely.

David quickly becomes as fascinated by this missing woman as the residents of Saltwater Mansions, all of whom have their own theories to share, and their own unique stories to tell. As his obsession grows, David unearths vital clues that private detectives and amateur investigators alike have failed to spot. But the closer he gets to the truth, the clearer it becomes that this mystery was never meant to be solved, and that some stories don't want to be told. What if this one was never about Caroline Lane at all?

From acclaimed and award-winning author David Whitehouse, Saltwater Mansions is an astonishing work of creative non-fiction blending reportage and memoir to explore the extraordinary hidden lives of ordinary people, the impact of grief, and the dangerous allure of taking true crime stories into our own hands.

'I inhaled it in a sitting - what an exhilarating book. Brave, revealing and unexpected'
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love

'A tremendous chronicler of real stories . . . an utterly absorbing read'
i Paper

'Ordinary lives, family grief, true crime, the dangers of amateur sleuthing, unexpected stories . . . there's a whole universe of humanity wrapped up in David Whitehouse's much anticipated new work of non-fiction . . . Prepare to read it in one addictive sitting'
Stylist ©2025 David Whitehouse (P)2025 Orion Publishing Group Limited

David WhitehouseDavid WhitehousePhoenix

Abductions, Kidnapping & Missing Persons

True Crime

Abductions, Kidnapping & Missing Persons True Crime

Critic reviews

A master storyteller and one of our greatest non-fiction writers (Terri White)

Magnificently told and devastatingly moving, Saltwater Mansions is a treasure trove of human truths - a bittersweet dive into the profundity, melancholy, and strange sweetness of being alive, bound by a totally original, utterly compelling true crime narrative (Harriet Gibsone, author of IS THIS OK?)

A beautiful, humane, compelling book. What begins as a humble inquiry into a small-town missing person's case becomes a plaintive, intricately nested set of untold stories, taking in the denizens of Margate to Whitehouse's own family. Each quietly extraordinary person who's entangled in this narrative is illuminated with such vividness and compassion you can't help but recognise the fragments of your own experience in all of them. David Whitehouse has always been a brilliant writer of Britain's overlooked characters, and this is his finest work yet (Benjamin Wood, author of THE YOUNG ACCOMPLICE)

An utterly incredible book. The memoir of a seaside town, a portrait of an absence, and a hymn of grief. I am still thinking about it (Dan Davies, author of IN PLAIN SIGHT: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile)

Saltwater Mansions delves into an engrossing mystery through a kaleidoscope of lives, and the result is thrilling, moving, and searingly profound. I loved it (Chris Whitaker, author of ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK)

Most relevant

Listened in a day, narration was very good. Something just a little bit different is this story and I really enjoyed it.