Hope to Die

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Overall, this a brilliant book that might just claim the honour of being the best DI Fawley novel to date, thanks to a case that proves impossible to get out of your head and impressive steps forward in character development. When the uniforms arrive there is a man lying dead on the kitchen floor with his face blown off by a shotgun blast, pretty gross I know. I was personally awed by the high-level investigative police work and meticulous attention to detail involved in solving the mystery behind the murder of an alleged house intruder. The Swanns prove to be a shifty pair especially aggressive Peggy and her brand of motherhood contrasts sharply with that of Alex.

In contrast to most types of fiction, I feel that police procedurals often work better as televisual dramatisations rather than on the printed page. Cara Hunter has pulled it off again, producing a real page turner, with revelations and twists galore, in this complex, but utterly absorbing police procedural. In the acknowledgements, Hunter notes that Camilla’s history of multiple unplanned and secret pregnancies, resulting in two babies given up for adoption in addition to the missing baby, is based on the case of Australian Keli Lane. Under questioning, Richard Swann and his more evasive wife Margaret insist that the man was an intruder and they were defending their household, but the police believe the real story is much more complex than that. I don't give out many 5-star ratings for book reviews, but "Hope to Die" fully deserves that top mark.The victim has no ID on him whatsoever, not even a mobile phone, and the elderly couple who live there claim they don’t know him, insist it was a burglary, but investigators discover that not everything is as it seems. Many thanks to Netgalley and Penguin General UK - Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Penguin Life, Penguin Business for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly. For any prospective readers who may find themselves in a similar situation, I am pleased to tell you that you can simply pick this series up at this point without it having any adverse effect on your enjoyment. If you’re looking for a crime book that will have you guessing right to the end, Hope to Die and the rest of the DI Adam Fawley series is a must read. There are sections that are somewhat more considered, but only when it is appropriate for them to be so - and there are other times when events unfurl rapidly as the investigation builds up a head of steam.

But I gotta say, this book was quite a chunk with +900 pages, and then I was waiting for that punch in the jaw at the end of the story - Cara Hunter style, which was there but we've had stronger punches in the previous books. The Camilla Rowan case is one of the most notorious of recent times and was even the subject of a Netflix documentary, with the whole affair causing her parents to live a secluded life. Written like others in the series, with lots of police interviews and TV scripts amongst other formats making up the bulk of the text. I enjoyed getting to know DI Fawley and his team again and I also enjoyed trying to solve the puzzle over the very unsympathetic character of Camilla Rowan – Milly Liar – and what really happened to her missing baby boy. Richard and Margaret Swann don’t appear to be murderers, but their stories don’t match up and the evidence contradicts what they say really happened.Cara Hunter is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling crime novels Close to Home, In the Dark, No Way Out, All the Rage and The Whole Truth all featuring DI Adam Fawley and his Oxford-based police team. This was my first Cara Hunter novel and the way it's written is completely different to most of the other crime and police procedural novels I've read. I have really enjoyed the DI Fawley series and have admired Hunter's writing style, her use of reproduced documents and evidence that take the idea of show not tell to a new level, making the reader a part of the investigating team. in my paperback), there's a description of Fawley and Gis watching Gis's son throw bread to the ducks. Hope To Die starts off with a gunshot in an isolated house in a secluded part of the countryside and when the police arrive at the scene the homeowners, an elderly couple, appear shocked to see the police and upon further investigation, the police find a young man dead in their kitchen killed by a gunshot to the face.