Crime author Tim Weaver sets out to understand how and why people disappear in the 21st century. As well as setting the challenge – is it really possible to disappear? - this week features conversations with two of the leading experts in missing persons investigations. Doctor Karen Shalev Greene is the Director for the Centre for the Study of Missing Persons and Sherri McAra is an analyst for the National Crime Agency’s Missing Persons Bureau. They work with Tim to walk through a missing persons investigation and lay out the surprising challenge of the task ahead.

Episode 01: Investigation

250,000 people disappear in the UK every year. 99% are found within the first year. But what about the remaining 1%? How are they still missing – and why did they disappear in the first place? This week, Tim Weaver meets with Dr Nigel Blackwood, forensic psychiatrist, and Frank M. Ahearn, author of 'How to Disappear’ - a professional that helps people vanish for a living. Using their expertise, Tim explores the complex reasons why people might choose to leave their life behind, and why that decisive step is even more difficult than you think.

Episode 02: Motivation

In a world of credit cards, online banking, mobile phones and social media, we’ve never been easier to trace and to follow. How can people disappear in a world where everything we do leaves digital footprints? Tim meets with Renate Samson, Chief Executive of Big Brother Watch, and Olivia Allison, director in KPMG’s corporate intelligence team. They describe the infinite ways in which we all leave a data trail, and who is it that can – and will – follow it.

Episode 03: Data Trail

The UK has one CCTV camera for every 14 people – and that’s just the beginning. Fingerprinting and facial recognition technologies are now found on everyday items, including our phones. This week, Tim investigates how people manage to disappear in a world where we're being recorded in increasingly advanced ways, and is joined by Clive Reedman, a leading expert in biometrics, and Renate Samson, Chief Executive of Big Brother Watch. They discuss the possibilities – and repercussions – of trying to hide in a world where cameras know your face.

Episode 04: You’re Being Watched

What’s life like for someone that actually, successfully disappears? Is it glamorous, a heady cocktail of new identities and new experiences? Or is it a constant, grinding pressure, as you're isolated from your friends, family and - increasingly - the truth? This week, Tim is joined by journalist Quinn Norton, ‘digital hitman’ Frank M. Ahearn, and Dr Nigel Blackwood, as they describe the unique pressures of life on the run.

Episode 05: Life On The Run

Tim takes a unique, behind the scenes tour of the Crime Museum of Scotland Yard, accompanied by Jackie Keily, curator of the Museum of London. From spies to serial killers, the Museum contains the artifacts and stories of those that have disappeared throughout history. What lessons can we learn from their successes - and their mistakes?

Episode 06: History

Sixteen-year-old Sadie Saunders is missing. Five friends set out into the woods to find her. But they're not just friends... They're suspects.

You see, this was never a search party. It's a witch hunt. And not everyone will make it home alive.

The Search Party by Simon Lelic, read by Ben Arogundade, Jack Rowan, Joe Gaminara, Nicole Davies, Fiona Button and Sacha Dhawan.

The Search Party by Simon Lelic – prologue

Dead Good Audio

Related tracks