A new Cara Hunter book is always a treat – and this is no exception. I read A LOT of crime fiction and think that Cara Hunter’s books are among the best.
This is the sixth book in the series featuring DI Adam Fawley and his team – although there are some plotlines that run across the books (mainly to do with the team’s personal lives and relationships), I think this could be enjoyed as a standalone novel.
The story opens with a murder in a remote farmhouse – the police arrive, alerted to a gunshot, and find a body plus two householders who can’t quite explain what happened. The police assume it was a burglary gone wrong, but things don’t quite add up. When links are discovered to a past child murder, it seems that DI Fawley and his team have a very complex tale to unravel.
As always, the police investigation feels credible and realistic – the steps and breakthroughs are logical and clear so there’s no suspension of disbelief required. Cara Hunter either has personal knowledge of police work or some pretty brilliant advisers! The people involved also seem plausible – the police team are well-developed as separate characters (and there’s even a cast list with back-stories at the front of the book if you need a hand). There are also the relationships you’d expect in a team that work together so closely and intensively – the banter, the one-upmanship, the tensions.
It’s impossible to write too much about the plot without giving spoilers, so I’ll just say that it was engaging, very twisty and packed some genuine surprises. This novel doesn’t rely on lots of graphic violence or a high body count for shocks (don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of all kinds of crime novel!) – it develops character and back-story instead, with the result that readers become invested in the plot.
I really loved that the story is told through a mixture of narrative, transcripts of interviews, Wikipedia-style entries, online chats, letters, news headlines and lots more. This really enhances the reader’s sense of immersion in the story and credibility of plot. The only comment on this is that these inserts are in very tiny font and are a bit challenging on the Kindle – I couldn’t get them to enlarge.
The Oxford setting of these novels always takes me back to reading the brilliant Inspector Morse stories by Colin Dexter. I’d say that Cara Hunter deserves a place in the crime writers’ pantheon alongside him.
Overall, I’d recommend this to lovers of clever and immersive police procedurals – once you’ve met DI Fawley and his team, you’ll definitely want more.
Thanks to NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
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Header photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
I’m such a sucker for formats that include like you said mixture of narrative, transcripts of interviews, Wikipedia-style entries, online chats, letters, news headlines so that alone would make me pick this book up. It sounds like a great crime fiction!