Great read. Not my usual genre but I was gripped throughout. I will definitely look out for more from this author and will be recommending to others.

Cara Hunter is such an accomplished story teller and thriller writer. This is third in the DI Adam Fawley series and it is just as good as ‘Close to Home’ and ‘In the Dark’. Her plotting and characterisation are hard to beat. This is a cracking detective novel with plenty of twists, turns and red herrings. It also feels really authentic. This authenticity is created, in part, by such clever use of social media devices (for example, members of the public commenting on internet press reports) and by the way she weaves in ‘proper’ police reports and emails.

The novel opens with a serious house fire from which two children are retrieved. There is no immediate trace of their parents and the police suspect they might have been home alone, until their mother’s body is discovered. There is an immediate suspicion of arson and murder rather than an awful accident. Where is the father and who would have done this?

The same team of investigators under DI Fawley are present and you learn more about their characters and personal life which brings them alive. It is because of this that I would recommend that you read the novels in order. It isn’t vital as they can be read as standalones but it would help you really get under the characters’ skins.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from NetGalley and publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

Absolute cracker!!
I'd read in the dark by the same author and had huge expectations from this one.. And.. She didn't disappoint!!
Hooked from the word go..!

An interesting read showing family dynamics with an unexpected twist at the end.
Well written although a little confusing with the different time lines and dates and random unrelated news headlines.

Back to Oxford with Cara Hunt and it’s Christmas! Oh but that’s where any sense of happiness ends for this is Cara Hunt’s Oxford and the team are on the case of a house fire and more. It’s a suspected case of arson and there’s children involved so it’s a tough read from the get go.

It’s a grim story but fascinating in the way Cara weaves in a very modern day investigation into the mix with social media snippets and newspaper cuttings etc. Makes it feel really fresh and ‘live’ and although it’s not my favourite way of reading in a novel, as I feel it gets in the way of the flow of the story. I do prefer to read text rather than snippets of text like this.


The police team are different this time - Fawley himself is more in the shadows and it’s Gislingham who is the lead Detective Sergeant in this case.
The various POVs, threads of the story wove in and out very nicely indeed and there are a few twists on those Oxford roads.

Setting is as strong as ever with the crime scenes fictionalised for obvious reasons but very close to main roads and/or landmarks in the real city of Oxford.

Bring on book four

Thank you for allowing me to read the 3rd book in the DI Fawley series. These books just get better and better. I read this book in 2 days. It was impossible to put down! A very strong storyline from the beginning. The author's has a very individual style of writing. Having read her two previous books I have become accustomed to her writing and now appreciate her individuality.

The story is about a house fire which kills a mother and her two sons. How and why did it happen? Family secrets are slowly revealed with the truth unfolding at the very end. I really enjoy the fire/police reports and the media and social media reaction as the story unfolds.

I shall wait for book 4 with anticipation and bated breath!

This is really good,very good. There is an intricate plot and just as you think you've guessed the outcome, something is discovered to make a rethink necessary. The characters in and outside the police are well drawn and believable. Even if we have to have the standard dysfunctional private lives for the detectives, at least this time some of it works out well! The amount of detail is limited to what the reader needs to understand the background and the plot. That is a bonus too.

What a splendid book this is, full of twists and turns and knots and all sorts of ingredients that go to make up a first class story. Such an engrossing story that it never lets up, there is even a twisty turn on the last page!

It's likely you have worked out that I greatly enjoyed this book and you would be correct if you have. Fully deserving of 5 stars and you making the time to read it.

I literally couldn’t read this fast enough. The plot is exceptional and the writing exceptional. Full of twists a rollercoaster of a ride, would give it more the a 5 star rating if I could. Definitely a book to read loved it, it’s a wow, wow, wow, book.

Cara hunter has done it again produced another excellent read. Whenever I open one of her books it’s like putting on a comfy pair of slippers. It’s lovely to hear more about the investigative team and how they conduct their investigation. The plot is brilliant. Can’t wait to see the next book 💜

An excellent crime novel with lots of twists to keep you guessing. This makes you question the possibilities so many times and I was still surprised at the end!

A house fire. A dead toddler. Another child pulled alive from the building. Where are the parents?

DI Fawley's team have a murder scene on their hands...

Fast-paced, good twists

It was the end of the Christmas holidays and Felix House in an elite area of Oxford was on fire. Two children were dragged from the inferno: one, a toddler, was pronounced dead at the scene and the other, a boy on the cusp of his teens, died in hospital some days later. But where were the parents? Were their bodies in what remained of the house and which was being steadily cleared, or had they left the children at home alone? For DI Adam Fawley it's one of his most disturbing cases. He's still not got over the death of his son and there's every sign that his marriage is on the rocks. For his team it's just a heartbreaking, exhausting case.

It's long been one of my principles - never join a series that's already established if you're planning on reviewing the book as it might not be fair on the author or the potential reader, but I seem to be breaking it on a regular basis at the moment. This time I didn't realise that it was part of a series until I glanced at the Amazon page after I'd finished reading and I'm grateful I didn't as I might have missed a good police procedural - and a series which I'm likely to follow in future.

It's Oxford, but not the Oxford of Morse. The father of the family involved in the fire, Michael Esmond, is an academic, but that's as close as it gets. This is the non-university, non-tourist side of the city, where people live, work and have mainstream jobs. The city's real and so are the people in the story: the Esmond family come off the page well despite being dead or missing when we meet them as Cara Hunter drip feeds us what's been happening in their lives over the past nine months or so. It's a device which can go wrong - and normally I don't like it - but it works well here and allows a lot of red herrings to grow to full size. I had just about everybody in the cast pencilled in as the murderer and still managed to get it wrong.

There's an insightful look at a mental-health issue, too. Postnatal depression can be particularly debilitating and is often misunderstood. Hunter deals with it sensitively, but still conveys the impact of the illness well. She's also excellent on grief and particularly the effect of losing a child: the Esmond boys' grandparents have to cope with losing their daughter and grandchildren and the investigation opens Adam Fawley's wound which is perhaps the deepest of all. His son, Jake, committed suicide when he was the same age as the older Esmond boy. Fawley's wife is also coping with the loss of a child - and the fact that Fawley doesn't want to adopt. It could signal the end of the marriage.

The book is very readable: I finished it in a couple of days despite the fact that I really should have been getting ready to go on holiday. I mean, packing wasn't that urgent was it? I'd like to thank the publishers for introducing me to this book and to what looks like a very promising series.

I have read the previous books in this series and this one is just as good. This author does the interesting thing of putting in online chat and it is very reflective of the way people are today. I think this series has a long run and I think it can only get better especially with the teams personal lives being interwoven with the story.

This is my new favourite police/crime series and I love the way Cara Hunter drip feeds you information and peppers it with red herrings. Just when you think you have it sussed it twists and turns again taking you in a completely different direction!

I also enjoy finding out a bit more about DI Fawley and his team and can’t wait for the next book in this series. I have awarded it 4.5 stars simply because I although I enjoyed it, i didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the second one in the series.

The book begins in the early hours of the morning on January 4th with a fire having quickly taken hold of an old expensive family home. It soon emerges that two young boys were in the house - were they home alone?

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced read copy of the book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Compulsive reading, true to form for Cara Hunter. I liked the authenticity of the web reports and was impressed by the level of research clearly undertaken, plus the references to genuine cases. The comments under the news reports are indicative of a solid grasp of the mentality of the great British public. Meticulously plotted and twisty. Great stuff!

I'm new to Cara Hunter book's, I'm so glad I have found this author.
Also new to DI Fawley series as the third book I was expecting to feel as through I will be playing catch up. No need to read the previous two books as this is a great stand alone but I will defiantly be ordering them.
Lot's of twists and turns and definitely didn't expect the ending.

This is the third book featuring the lead investigator, DI Fawley. I was unaware of this prior to reading the book and the story works well as a standalone novel with no need to have read the previous books.

The story does well to keep the ending surprising with sufficient twists and dead ends along the investigation while the story plays out in flashbacks alongside the present day investigation. There is a wonderful depth to the story and the characters and I enjoyed seeing the first obvious conclusions of the investigations torn down as the story progressed and the reality revealed.

While much of the story is written in the third person, DI Fawley's part is written in the first person. This was a little confusing at first while I got used to the style. There are also injections of reports and transcripts which while a novel technique, tended to interrupt the pacing occasionally. This did not take aware from the overall story and I am sure after finishing this novel, reading another in a similar style would not present such drawbacks.

An enjoyable read and I look forward to reading other books in the series.

I really enjoyed the story but intensely dislike the way it's written. It's very much like the first book in this series. The 2nd book was so much better because it edged away from inserting so many texts, emails etc. Half of what they contained was unnecessary to the story and it makes the author seem lazy, as if they can't be bothered to write the story properly. The occasional submission may be alright but this book was littered with them and they do nothing to enhance the story.

Good thriller, many twists and turns and a climax to look forward to.
Perhaps too much extraneous "fluff" in the netgalley version I read which I found distracting whilst reading it but a really good plot and a well told storey. Look forward to the next one.
Thanks to the author, proofreaders and typesetters please get you act together.