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.

Really enjoy this author and this book did not disappoint lots of twists and turns and many a red herring thoroughly recommended

Cara Hunter just gets better and better. D I Adam Fawley and his team are fabulous. Move over Morse; Oxford now belongs to this exciting new police procedural series. Intelligent, but never patronizing. Twisty but believable; Ms Hunter blends the everyday with the unthinkable. This is the third in this series and, while it is great as a standalone, I would recommend that everyone reads all of these. In my opinion, police fiction/whodunnit gets no better than this. Masterful!

A good mystery novel with plenty of twists and turns. Every time I thought I'd figured it out the plot took a totally unanticipated path and kept me guessing right to the end. The characters were well thought out, from the police to the victims and the people they questioned or worked with along the way. A good read, but I felt like I was missing out on some background with regard to the characters. That's just a small thing however and the storyline does stand on it's own. I'd definitely recommend it if you enjoy a good mystery.

Fantastic book! This is the third in the DI Fawley series and just as good as the other two. The crime to be investigated in this book is a horrific fire in which two young children are involved. The parents appear to be missing and it soon becomes clear the fire was no accident. The impact of the fire is absolutely horrific and some of the post mortem scenes are not for the faint hearted!
So many twists to this story, I thought I knew what was going on, but my perceptions were constantly being challenged as new evidence came to light. After the initial incident, we are taken back in time over the previous few months to discover the events leading up to the fire. We find out more about the characters and their motivations. The way this is written, using police reports and social media posts really work, they give us another perspective on the events. I would like to have heard more from Fawley himself, he has taken more of a back seat in this book, but we do find out how his personal story progresses by the end of the book.
I can't wait for more from this author, her books are very cleverly constructed and made to be devoured by the reader!

What a ride! I was completely absorbed by the book and its story. It was a read of a few days, as if inhaling this book was the only way of dealing with it. I am not a person for cruel and bloody crime stories, so this story was sometimes a bit of a problem, but I think the author manages quite well not to dwell on the cruel facts too much.
One problem I've got was getting warm with the characters of the police force, not having read the previous stories in the series. Those minor problems were a bit annoying at the beginning of the book, but after some time I have accepted the fact that some personal information is missing and the story captured my attention completely. The twists were not obvious and I could accept all of them, so the ending was a full surprise for me.
I enjoyed the book very much.

Once again another fantastic book from one of my favourite authors,Would highly recommend you read this waiting patiently for the next one to come out :)
Keep up the good work Cara Hunter!

Wow, this book was incredible. Another five star review in the DI Fawley series. After previously reading Close to Home I wasn’t sure how Cara could improve, but she has!
This time the story revolves around a house fire and a dead family, we see the investigation unfold, stall and then pick up speed for an incredibly ending. I was absolutely gripped and although I guessed some of the twist it still came as quite a surprise. I actually sobbed when the story of how the children died was revealed, so sad! Not only is the house fire a feature, we also get to learn more about some of the police staff, their backgrounds, their struggles and for some their happy endings.
Loved this book! Thanks for sharing, I look forward to reading more in this series.

I enjoyed this rather good police procedural. The story about the Esmond family whose house is burnt to the ground in an intense fire.The two children are found quickly but neither survive. The focus is then on the parents and the likelihood that the fire was arson. There are lots of twists - one small criticism is that not all the twists are as believable as I would have liked. Still, the plot races along and the solid police work does the job. I would read another book by the author Cara Hunter.

This is an absolutely brilliant book. Cara Hunter’s writing has gone from strength to strength. The story builds up little by little into a great crescendo, meanwhile we get to know some of the other characters on Fawley’s team most notably Gislingham who is the lead Detective Sergeant on the case.

I was drawn in by this story and the red herrings, twists and turns were excellent. I loved the use of the newspaper articles and commentary from bystanders- it lent credibility to the story.

Absolutely excellent 5🌟

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.
It took me a while to understand who was who, and wish I’d read the books in order. However, in spite of a bit of contusion about the back story of the detectives, I became fully engrossed in the story and read it very quickly.
None of the characters were particularly endearing, but I was drawn to the victims plight and overall, it was terribly tragic. It became quite riveting as it progressed as I couldn’t work out who did it... although I did realise eventually! A little before the reveal.
I’ll definitely read more of Cara’s books, and will likely read the first of this series too.

When I am first drafting or doing edits I can't read romance, so I usually will have a crime binge (interestingly (or not) my crime writer friend reads romance during her first drafts and edits) and it was in my most recent round of edits that I discovered Cara Hunter's Oxford-set books. I read the two already published and went to download the third, only to find it's not due out until next year, so you can imagine how chuffed I was when I managed to nab a copy on Netgalley!
So why has this series, out of all the series I binge during editing-furies, grabbed my attention? Two reasons: the twisty plots and the unusual writing style.
Hunter has a pretty unique writing style, perfect for the digital age. She combines first person (Fawley) with a whole host of third party view points which means we get to know his team pretty well, not just because of how he sees them but because of how they see each other and themselves. This makes the usual personal relationships, team dynamic and growth extra compelling and deeper than usual, even if Fawley as a result, is a little more of an enigma than most protagonists because we spend less time than expected in his POV. She also weaves in the crime plot through multiple POV and a timeline that starts up to a year before the incident, so we learn the victims and those closely connected to them intimately and this allows red herrings to be sown neatly throughout the book, each new section another unwrapping leading to the truth. This means the final denouement never seems forced or too obscure because we learn every clue the police do along with them, and sometimes before them. Additionally reports are written as reports, telephone conversations as scripts, websites and messages and comments authentically creating a real sense of time and place.
No Way Out deals with a devastating fire just after Christmas, when Fawley's team is stretched and he is undergoing a personal crisis. I can't say anymore about the plot because every reader needs to take the twisty turns for themselves so I will just say it's a compelling, fast paced, clever read and one which will keep you up, keep you guessing and leave you waiting impatiently for book 4.

I have to say I got very excited to see that the third book in the DI Fawley series was coming and that I didn’t have to wait as Netgalley so kindly provided me with an advanced copy, thankfully cos I’m the impatient type of reader who would just keep going and going with a series, I feel like I’m there.

The book heats up straight from the off, excuse the pun as you will soon realise why, Fawley and his team are called to a house fire where a toddler aged 3 has perished and his older brother, 10 is in critical condition, where are the parents? Were these kids left alone? So many questions fired at you all at once, brilliant.

I loved how the chapters flitted between news articles, social media and comments from the public, to see it from all angles, some feeling sorry for the family and others quick to blame the father who is MIA!

The story is told twofold, the investigation and before the fire so we get to see what the backstory is, how family history and lies can tear people apart. Believe me when I say, there are twist and turns and red herrings thrown in to boot, you won’t know which way is up!

I’ll say no more for fear of ruining or spoiling the plotline but suffice to say, for fans of Cara Hunter, you’re in for a treat and for those that haven’t started this series yet…. DO IT NOW you won’t regret it.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Books UK and Cara Hunter for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.