A Great Read

The chance discovery of a young mother and child locked in a basement gives fresh impetus to the two-year old investigation of a missing mother. The properties which form the centre of the crimes back onto one another. Is this pure coincidence or do both crimes share a common link? Full of many a twist and turn the novel has a splendid surprise in store for the reader at the end.
Cara Hunter makes innovative use of social media throughout the book which serves to compliment the plot as a commentary on developments as the police conduct their investigation.
This is the second novel in the D I Fawley series and as gripping as "Close to Home". The characterisation is very good: Quinn suffers a comeuppance. Cara Hunter shows a deft understanding of Alzheimer's and her restricted use of swear words serves to highlight Harper's condition.
"In the Dark" is not a short novel at around 450 pages, which I felt was probably a bit too long. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend it to others.

I’m always pleased to find a new-to-me detective series close to the beginning of its run, particularly when the setting is familiar but the premise of the story is a little different to the norm. In this case, I was offered a book to review that was set in Oxford – a city I know well both personally and as the backdrop to other crime sagas – and looked to be taken from a couple of recent news stories but giving them an unexpected but signposted twist. Sadly, I wasn’t able to get hold of the first book in the series straight away, which again appeared to be putting a new slant on a story we think we all know, but the longish waiting list at the library a year after its original UK publication gave me high hopes for the quality of this second book in the series.

Builders are hard at work renovating a Victorian house in an affluent area of Oxford, when they accidentally break through a wall into the cellar of an adjoining property. On the other side, they are horrified to discover an emaciated and dehydrated young woman and her toddler son, apparently locked in and abandoned. When the police arrive, they try to question the owner of the house where the pair have been found, but he appears to be suffering from advanced dementia and has no idea who the woman is or how she came to be in his cellar. A team is quickly assembled to investigate, led by DI Adam Fawley, who has not long finished wrapping up another case of child abduction.

Fawley is a fascinating character, both in the first-person narrative sections told from his point of view and in the third-person narrative sections told from the point of view of others involved in the case. On the surface an old school detective, behind the facade he is grieving for the death of his own son the previous year and fears that his marriage will never recover, since he and his wife – in spite of living together – seem increasingly estranged by their shared loss.

As the woman and her child are initially unable to provide any information, Fawley has to search elsewhere for clues to their identity and the exact nature – and culprits – of the crime committed against them. Struck by the similarities to the case of a missing woman and abandoned child that he was never able to solve, Fawley looks for connections and discovers that although the first missing woman lived on a different street, the garden of her house shared a boundary with that of the house they are now investigating, Fawley orders the team into the outbuildings, and it’s not long before a body is uncovered.

Meanwhile, Fawley’s wife has persuaded her husband and the powers-that-be to let her be a temporary foster-carer to the boy found in the cellar. While she is given detailed preparation as to what to expect from a child born in captivity, she is soon able to draw Fawley’s attention to the fact that the boy’s behaviour doesn’t quite tie in with his supposed history. When Fawley figures out the reasons, the true crimes committed turn out to be more shocking than he could have ever forseen.

I loved this book so much. Not just for the twisty plot and for Fawley and his complex personal life, but also for all the other characters who make up his team and the wider cast of witnesses and suspects. I was also greatly taken by the storytelling aspects. Not only do we get the close-up views of Fawley’s thoughts, and the more distant views of the other character, we also get to see how the case is viewed in the wider world of Oxford and beyond, through Twitter feeds, newspaper cuttings, and other aspects of (social) media. I’ve now got hold of the first book, and it’s just as riveting. A highly recommended series whose US release is lagging slightly behind that in the UK, but it is out there if non-British readers care to search for it.

I'd like to thank Netgalley, the publisher and Cara Hunter for this book.

I loved "Close To Home" and I loved this one just as much. Watching the characters progress is great as they come into their with each book. I won't explain the book as so many people have already done so.

I was completely gripped from the beginning and found myself on the wrong path every time I thought I knew who had done it, I was not expecting that!

Thoroughly enjoyed this book and can't wait for book three.

Well done Cara, I think you could be an author to watch out for.

I highly recommend this book.

Oooh I raced through this book. We are reintroduced to Adam Fawley who led the search for Daisy in this author’s debut. No need to have read it as this book is easily standalone but there’s a few clues which link the stories.

An unashamedly dark book with intrigue and depravity at every turn. Really clever, I didn’t expect some of the outcomes ... a really easy read with a fluid and gentle style that belies the unpleasant nature of what you’re reading - in short, it makes it more palatable.

Bloody brilliant - a 5* read from me!!

A police procedural to keep you guessing. The second in the series but OK to read as a stand-alone but will we hear of the protagonists again. A dead woman, a girl and her young son locked in the basement of an old house owned by an elderly man suffering from Alzheimer’s . How, why and where?
The police team set off on their mission to uncover the truth. The tale unfolds by clever use of various techniques to keep your interest and attention. Also as within this genre a background to the team and it’s leader. Excellent reading

Even though I ended up buying my own physical copy of this book to read, I still would like to thank Netgalley and the publishers for also providing me with a copy to review.

------ " A WOMAN AND CHILD ARE FOUND LOCKED IN A BASEMENT ROOM, BARELY ALIVE. No one knows who they are - the woman can't speak, and there are no missing persons reports that match their profile. The elderly man who owns the house claims he has never seen them before. The Inhabitants of the quiet Oxford street are in shock. How could this happen right under their noses? But DI Adam Fawley knows that nothing is impossible. And that no one is as innocent as they seem...." ---------

Cara Hunter has done it again! I loved 'Close to Home' and this one is even better!! I was gripped right from the very beginning to that very unpredictable end!

Cara has become one of my favourite authors. She didn't just deliver a brilliantly-written book, she delivered a compelling, captivating story that draws in readers right from the get-go! The story is told through not only the perspectives of Adam Fawley and his team, but also through the use of media outputs such as newspaper articles, interview scripts and social media comments from the public. Really allowed me to connect with both the story and the characters!

With a shocking intense plot, cleverly-written characters and an ending I didn't see coming; I honestly can't wait for the third book in this series!
Highly recommend!!!

In the Dark

I haven't read the first book in this series featuring DI Fawley; In the Dark works very well as a stand alone and I'll definitely read the earlier story too.

There are so many police procedural/psychological thrillers at the moment. It can be difficult to stand out in a popular genre. Cara Hunter's narrative is different in that she introduces forensic reports, witness statements and other material alongside the main investigation. She's skilled at presenting facts in such a way that it's very difficult to second guess where the story is leading. This keeps the tension building and I was blown away by the final chapters. What a belting story from start to finish. Unusual premise, but plausible and it kept me hooked right the way through.

My thanks to Penguin for a review copy via Netgalley.

This is great second instalment in the DI Fawley series after Close To Home. We get to see a bit more of Adam’s private life and also a bit more background into his trusty team. I am a huge fan of series that keep the same characters throughout and Cara is making a great start on building this team that I hope will be firm favourites for many.

Really enjoyed this book and as a detective/crime thriller, it was right up my street!

The plot opens with the discovery of a woman and small child in the cellar of the house next door and the subsequent investigation into how they had got there and who was responsible. It is the second in a series following DI Adam Farley and as it is often the case with detective led novels, the narrative does briefly switch to his personal life from time to time. This doens't detract from the main plot in any way though and ina lot of ways, it actually adds to it.

Switching the narrative between the unfolding police investigation and witness statements, interviews, reports etc was a great way to add twists. Unlike a lot of books in the same genre, the twists weren't that big until nearer the end but that helped to ramp up the tension bit by bit.

One of the things I really liked about it was the lack of sensationalism. The crime in question is pretty horrific but it wasn't written about in gory detail, as you sometimes get with these kind of books.

I thought I'd figured things out near the end and to some extent, I had, but I was then hit with a new twist on that and I really didn't see that coming! Thoroughly recommend this book and will be looking out for more in the series.

Last year I read Close To Home the debut novel from Cara Hunter which I thought was a pretty amazing crime thriller. In The Dark the second book in the DI Fawley series has made this an unmissable series. Yes it can easily be read as a standalone but because this is shaping up to be a such a gripping series it’s definitely worth starting at the beginning. In The Dark opens with a belter of chapter, A young woman and a child are found locked in a cellar, William Harper the owner is an elderly man who appears to be confused, and is unable to remember how they got there. Neither of the victims can speak due to trauma they suffered. Which means DI Fawley and his team start an investigation where they find themselves literally working “In The Dark” who is the woman? how did she end up in the cellar of a quiet Oxford street? These are just some of the questions that are at the forefront of this gripping and compelling crime procedure thriller.

Cara Hunter has a gift for writing crime books centred around police procedures, she not only tells a story in the conventional way, but adds police interviews, forensic reports, social media post and newspaper articles to make the reader feel they are right there amid the investigation sifting through the clues. This way of sharing the information gives the plot a present day feel but it also makes the whole investigation feel very credible. It’s very cleverly done in my opinion as it adds a sense of urgency to the plot, the need for answers to the why and how, keep the reader fixated.

Creating a character whose confused to say the least, who also happens to be the main suspect was sheer genius on the author’s part. Although there is some character development of Fawley and his team, the investigation is definitely at the forefront of this book, so no time is wasted on unnecessary chapter filling, which made this book even more enjoyable to read. There is nothing more satisfying than being surprised by a book, and boy did Cara Hunter surprise me! At one point I thought the author was rehashing a well used plot in crime thrillers but when I least expected it she threw in the mother of all curve balls, it truly was a “OMFG I never seen that coming” type of moment. Definitely one of the best crime thrillers I’ve read this year, with a compelling narrative, twists galore and oodles of deceit, I have a feeling In The Dark is going to be a HUGE success and one of this summers MUST reads. Highly recommended.

This is going to come as no surprise but I’m giving the very prestigious Gold Star Award Rating. It’s given to a book I feel is particularly outstanding, a book that covers every aspect of what I look for in a read, an original plot, great characters and a storyline that draws me in from the first page and keeps me in its grips until I reached the very last page.

Posted on my blog 16/07/2018

In The Dark is a strong sequel to Hunter's Close To Home. Fast-paced and filled with unexpected twists, readers are sure to be on the edge of their seats. The police procedural aspects are done realistically. The suspense doesn't let up. Hunter's writing style adds in mixed media making for a well-rounded story as you see the public's opinion of the case. Cara Hunter is an author not to be missed! Her DI Fawley novels are an excellent addition to the world of police procedural series.

Wow....I did not see the end of that one coming. Really had me hooked and I could not put this one down. I loved all the characters. Its so well written and easy to read. I have read many crime detective novels and this one is going to take some beating. I really enjoyed this and the end has left me reeling. I have not read the first book in this series "Close to Home" and now I am asking myself why not??? Definitely adding this to my "To be Read List". If you enjoy a good who do it then this is definitely one for you.

This is the second book in the series by author Cara Hunter which has DI Adam Fawley in the lead. The book starts with the discovery of a half alive woman with a 2 year old found in the cellar of Dr. Harper. None of the 3 characters can answer what really happened, as Harper has dementia, the woman in the cellar has PTSD and the child is a toddler. Adding to this there is also a dead body of the neighbor Hannah found.
The cops are shocked with the enormity of the crime. But Adam Fawley and his team take it remarkably on their stride.
This is author Cara Hunter's second police procedural book, and she has done a remarkable job bringing out the realistic parts of a police investigation along with media news surrounding it.
Adam's despairing personal life with his wife is also shown, adds to the reality of characters. The book reads fast and is intriguing enough with its twists and turns to make it a page Turner on this rainy Sunday afternoon.

A great detective novel. I had expected a full blown psychopathic novel but this was so refreshing and a book that was hard to put down. It covers so much rape, imprisonment, theft, murder, all woven into a twisting plot where things do not always seem to add up as they should. I loved it and can’t wait to read more by this great author and especially any more in this series..

This book is brilliant! Absolutely not what I was expecting from the blurb, which was a heartbreaking story of a young woman imprisoned for many years. The story takes such unpredictable turns; it is quite magnificent. The large cast of police officers are realistic 3D characters, each with their own faults and stories. I'm now going to buy the previous book in this series, and can't wait for the third to be published.

In the Dark is a very intelligent and brilliantly structured murder mystery. DI Adam Fawley returns in this second book from Cara Hunter, to lead a complex police investigation, involving murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment, rape, theft and a right few other crimes. It is a smart, highly charged and engrossing story with surprises and dead-ends galore.

New owners of a house in an exclusive area of Oxford are undertaking renovation work in their basement when they inadvertently knock a hole through into the neighbour’s basement. Through the gap, they catch a glimpse of an emaciated woman and a child. The owner of the other house is Dr William Harper, a retired University professor, in his seventies, apparently suffering from Alzheimer’s, and living alone, well supposedly alone apart from a woman and child imprisoned in his basement. There are inclinations similar to the Austrian case of Josef Fritzl, considering there’s every possibility that the child was conceived and born in the basement.

The investigation into the incarceration of the woman and her son gets off to a frustrating start because she won’t/can’t speak (PTSD), the child can’t and the elderly man is often incoherent. The investigation does continue nevertheless and expands into revelations well beyond a case of kidnapping and imprisonment. As the team delve into the search of the house, they discover a dead body tightly wrapped and taped in a blanket beneath a garden shed. Now it’s a murder case! The body is identified as Hannah Gardiner and one of the major suspects will be her husband Rob, someone they were suspicious off when she was first reported missing 2 years earlier. The police procedural aspect was very well researched and organised.

The backbone of the novel is told through the eyes of DI Adam Fawley, but what I loved about the structure of the book was the way other parallel events and information sources seamlessly integrated with the main story and added to a sense of hyperactivity. These information titbits such as emails, reports, news articles, and other police activities, never overtook the main plot and maintained the narration and intrigue at an enthralling pace. I never felt the story abate or wander and at multiple points, the cliff-hanging statement or observation just needed me to go on a few more pages than planned. Page turning at its best!

The police characters worth mentioning, besides Fawley, include; DS Gareth Quinn, DC Chris Gislingham and PC Erica Somer. This array of wonderful characters are all individually and distinctly drawn to give us a captivating range of personalities that sometimes are complementary and sometimes fractious. Fawley is capable and purposeful but is emotionally quite deep while he struggles silently with devastating personal issues following the suicide of his son, and the growing unspoken distance with his wife. I believe this team of competent police characters will stand the test of time as the series continues – hopefully.

I highly recommend this book and Cara Hunter is definitely one author that I will faithfully watch for new releases. Many thanks to Penguin Books (UK) Publishing Limited and NetGalley, for an ARC version of the book in return for an honest review.

This is the second in the series by Cara Hunter featuring DI Adam Fawley. It might be set in Oxford but we have quite a different type of detective, crimes and characters than those who featured in Inspector Morse.

DI Adam Fawley falls into the breed of likeable detective. As you’d expect, he has some baggage, but in his case his past is one that is only likely to illicit sympathy. We learn a little more about him following on from his first outing Close to Home but his story is very much in the background, the foreground is most definitely the crimes committed in the quiet Oxford street where a woman and a young child are found locked in a basement.

The woman Vicky and child are starved and thirsty and severely traumatised, Vicky not speaking at all at first and with the owner of the house, Dr William Harper, is denying all knowledge of them the police are up against it trying to work out who the prisoners are, and more importantly how long and why they’ve been locked up. In their search for clues they realise that the house backs onto the garden of the home of a missing woman called Hannah Gardiner.

There are lots of characters who all add rich detail to what becomes an investigation into the two women, and of course the child who is too young to be able to tell them anything. The police team of course consists of more than DI Fawley and the relationship between the officers is good with Detectives Quinn and Gislingham (Gis) providing a realistic view of how to survive working on such a harrowing investigation.

“Gis, who has always been exceptionally good at knowing when to stop digging, and Quinn who carries his own set of shovels“

The author has worked hard though to provide a reasonable complement of police, all with distinct personalities which is far more realistic that the older style police procedurals with just a couple of detectives involved in solving a case. Another example that gives this book an up-to-date feel is the full use of the female detectives and supporting police personnel throughout the story. As in real life they are no longer used just to pass hankies these women are involved from beginning to end.

With the use of news reports from BBC Midlands and the like, inserted into the story the author also moves away from the more traditional tale that is told just from one viewpoint, this element is built upon with transcribed interviews, including from those living in Frampton Road. These are brilliant, the author telling us so much about the area from both the content and the words used.

This, as was the first book, is a fast-paced police procedural with the author liberally sprinkling her story with red-herrings to keep her reader’s guessing and I for one lapped it all up and I’m eager for the next book by this author to see what dark mystery Oxford will serve up for us next.

I'd like to say a huge thank you to Penguin Books UK who allowed me to read an advance copy of In the Dark. This unbiased review is my thanks to them and of course Cara Hunter for keeping so thoroughly entertained if a little traumatised by what was waiting for me on this visit to Oxford!

This second instalment in the DI Adam Fawley series has confirmed my initial thoughts that Cara Hunter is one to look out for. In this book Fawley and his team are involved in yet another horrific case. This time it involves a young woman and her toddler son discovered, purely by chance, imprisoned in the cellar of a house in Oxford. With their food and drink supply gone she is barely alive having tried desperately to save her little boy. The house is owned by an elderly man who appears to suffer from Alzheimer’s. With both the woman and the child too traumatised to say anything and her not matching anyone reported as missing, the police must find out who she is and they must prove that a man, no longer in control of his mind, kidnapped her, abused her and kept her prisoner.

There is intrigue and tension from the very start with this novel. With the department facing such a deeply upsetting crime they must all dig deep to get through it. We learn more about Fawley and his main team members Gislingham, Quinn and Everett along with the informed cop Somer who works alongside them. I thoroughly enjoy a crime series where, in each new book, we find out more about the people who feature throughout. Fawley himself is complex, dealing with his own personal tragedy in the past (as we do often find in crime series), and he wasn’t always likeable in the previous book, Close to Home. Here we see a more human and vulnerable side to him at times and I found myself buying into him even more than I did before.
The storyline itself is fully engaging and at times there are twists that took my breath away. I am normally pretty good at working out what has happened but this one totally foxed me! Hunter once more takes up the style of interjecting interviews, reports etc. into the chapters. This worked better in her previous book I felt and although it does work here, it was just a wee bit stilting at times, hence the four and not the five stars. A small thing overall in such a good book though.

Some of the subject matter is hard, as is often the case with the novels I tend to read, but nonetheless this book is very good and one I full recommend. I now (im)patiently await the next in this series!

This was a good book to read as you really get into it as you try to work out what is going on, which there is a lot of that pulls you in to discover more.

Having building work completed in his new house he is not happy when the builders discover a hole into next door and locked in that cellar are a young girl and a baby. So many questions are asked and the owner of the house has not got any answers as he has got dementia. How long had they been down there? Was the baby born down there?

As you get through the first half and you think you have it then off it goes in another direction, this was really thrilling to read as so many things were coming up that you had to make sense off. Then another body is found in the same location, are the two things linked and if so how.

The owner of the house is not any help but when they do DNA tests they have even more questions but no answers. This is really thrilling and I loved it and could not put it down but then I needed a break to work out what was going on. If you like to lose yourself in a book then this is the one for you. It will be in my top 5 of this year as it really is that good. No wonder it was in Richard and Judy’s book club!

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Here’s a little test. Pictured above is a variety of handbag pom-pom charms. The difference in price from the cheapest to the most expensive is around £400. See if you can tell which is which.

None of this is terribly relevant to the plot of this new book, except I suppose the shoplifting and the choice of item shows something about a character…

I very much enjoyed Cara Hunter’s first book, Close to Home, featuring DI Adam Fawley and set in a beautifully-portrayed and very recognizable Oxford. This is the second in the series, and is also a very good police procedural, with great characters. However, be prepared that it is not for the faint of heart: the crimes and lives in the book contain some terrible things.

The story opens in fine form with MayDay morning in Oxford, a time of great and unusual revelry in the city:






And then the story zeroes in on a pair of houses where building works are under way. Accidentally knocking through into the neighbours’ cellar, the builders find something horrible: a young woman and a child apparently locked in there.

The assumption is that the old man living there, who is mysterious and somewhat reclusive, and turns out to have dementia, is responsible, but the investigation proves to be far from simple, and nothing is quite what it seems. It is difficult to write any more about the plot without spoilering, because the story is very compelling and travels a long way from that opening, dipping to take in another plot strand about a different young woman who disappeared some time back. There is a lot of detecting to do… and the results could be described as far-fetched, though I do not mean that as an insult.

It is a very compelling read, and the clues and the plotting are very impressive, and the writing is good, and clever, and funny:
‘How much longer am I going to be stuck here?’ she says, in that sing-song upper-middle accent this town is thick with.
‘My father wasn’t exactly an early adopter when it comes to technology. Him and the scanner were in a state of perpetual alarmed stand-off.’
I wonder in passing what the collective noun for profilers would be. A ‘composite’ perhaps.

My only reservation is about the gruesomeness of what is going on: it was definitely teetering on the edge of what I can take, although of course everyone has a different threshold for this. And even as I mentally drew a curtain over some of it, I was admiring of the conviction with which Hunter drew those who do wrong: one character in particular is horrifying, terrifying, but weirdly believable.

Afterwards, all kinds of questions might arise as to whether the events were possible (I was interested in the food order… ) but I always think that is fair enough: if the writer kept you going through unlikelihoods, then well played her. The same was true of her first book – but she gets away with it. And the detection is great.

Just, this is quite a long way from comfort reading, it is a book about nastiness…

Picture from the Beautiful Things blog http://www.the-beautiful-things.com/2016/04/18/sticker-tote/