Hope to Die

Product Information

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.

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. They trudge up the drive, the gravel crunching beneath their feet, puffing white in the cold air. They can almost feel the temperature dropping; there’ll be ice on that SUV by morning. Hunter’s imagining of what happened to Camilla’s baby results in a fast paced, intricate plot, filled with suspense and some great twists. It really is an intriguing case. Fawley finds himself interviewing Camilla in prison and she truly is just as slippery and unhelpful as reported in her original interviews. A brilliant read, recommended for all fans of crime fiction. 4.5★ 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.When the police discover a connection to a high-profile case from years ago, involving a child's murder and an alleged miscarriage of justice, the press go wild.

I don’t want to give too much away but at the centre of the puzzling conundrum is a character who is fascinating, who will make you recoil in horror and who is most definitely a chameleon who changes and lies with startling alacrity. That characterisation is superb as your emotions change as new evidence emerges. It’s full of very good twists and turns, it’s exciting and unpredictable and as yet another excellent addition to this outstanding series. 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. At times the story almost seemed over-complicated, although the case was satisfactorily solved in the end but there were still one or two issues that I felt were open to interpretation – which for me is a good thing. As if that wasn’t enough, Cara has now written her first stand alone novel Murder In The Family, due to be published in April. There are so many things to love about this series. Hunter has once again crafted a story that is so fast paced, so full of twists and turns and so well researched that I honestly couldn’t have put the book down even if I wanted to. I really enjoy Hunter’s writing style and I find it absolutely fascinating the way she includes interview transcripts, newspaper clippings and TV scripts to bring the story to life. I was also really intrigued to learn that the story is inspired by a real life case in Australia which for me made the story even more compelling.

Advance Praise

I load the last of the supper plates and straighten up. Alex is watching me from the other side of the kitchen. She looks a little apprehensive, though I don’t know why: she can’t really think I’d say no.

When the police discover a connection to a high-profile case from years ago, involving a child’s murder and an alleged miscarriage of justice, the press go wild. Suddenly Fawley’s team are under more scrutiny than ever before. And when you dig up the past, you’re sure to find a few skeletons… So it’s been fun and incredibly immersive. It’s like an Agatha Christie style murder-mystery set in the modern day,” Cara explains. Before long, it becomes clear that the Swanns changed their name by deed poll after a notorious court trial in which their daughter, Camilla aka 'the chameleon', was convicted of the murder of her baby on the basis of circumstantial evidence, no body was ever recovered. After 17 years, Camilla is still serving her life sentence at HMP Heathside. DNA evidence obtained from the victim proves that the dead man's mother is Camilla, clear evidence that she was not guilty of murdering her baby. As Adam and his hardworking team look into the past, at the previous police investigation and Camilla as a schoolgirl, her multiple pregnancies, her friends and family, and the present, who is the dead man and how did he come to make the fateful visit to the farmhouse to see the Swanns? There is surprise twist after twist in this dark and disturbing crime story. So what do you think? I know Ben’s really young to be a godparent, but if it hadn’t been for him –’ Considering Cara was a copywriter writing books on the side a few years ago, her rise has been meteoric.

What I did like was the character ‘recap’ as such at the start of the book, with specific things about them and what rank they were. Quite a unique addition to a book I think. D I Fawley and his team head up the investigation, but it’s not going to be an easy one to solve. 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.

The DI Adam Fawley series is without a doubt my favourite police procedural series. Everything about this series is so well done and Hope to Die is another terrific installment. In Hope to Die we follow Fawley and the team as they are called to investigate a shooting at a remote farmhouse. Shootings don’t happen often and there are a few things about the scene that don’t seem quite right. As the team dig deeper they soon discover that this was far from a burglary gone wrong and may have connections to one of the country’s most infamous crimes. The writing? On point as usual. Her writing technique and style is top notch. She's a true master of show vs. tell without run on sentences or overcooked prose. Yes, the no chapters thing is odd, but the scene breaks help and tbh 5 books deep, I barely notice it now. I LOVE Hunter's use of mixed media – but I know others are averse to this, so tread lightly. Unlike The Last Housewife which boasted a "podcast" element aka basic transcription formatting, Hunter goes above and beyond. Her news clips are truly written, and presented, like news clips. Her Netflix series scripts are professional and on-point. The effort she puts into the mixed media excerpts is incredible. Respect dawg. Whew, that was tougher than I thought as they were all so good. As you can see, Hope to Die was right up there. Creepy, disturbing, exciting, fast-paced, with a high level of suspense maintained throughout, culminating in an explosive, satisfying conclusion. POV’s included our regulars who appear in every book - Adam Fawley and his team as we follow their investigation, and those connected to the crime a.ka. victims, witnesses, and suspects. There are no chapters, aside from a prologue and epilogue, but there are frequent paragraph breaks every time there’s a scene/POV shift. Police receive a call of a shooting at a remote cottage one night. 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. The homeowners, elderly couple Richard and Margaret Swann claim he broke in and Richard shot him in self defence. There is a knife in his hand and Richard has a nasty cut on his own hand. When the police discover a connection to a high-profile case from years ago, involving a child’s murder and an alleged miscarriage of justice, the press go wild.

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This is quite hard for me to review as this is my first Cara Hunter book and at the time of joining the blog tour I wasn’t aware this was book six of a series 😫 and only realised this once I started reading it and put it on goodreads as currently reading so I do think that sadly took away some of the reading experience as I felt like I had missed out on things from previous books. As I got further in the book I think I struggled with the format and the addition of newspaper articles, police interviews and similar information. I became a little distracted from what was actually going on. Similar to the past books in the series, the sixth addition to the DI Adam Fawley series promises to deliver from the very start. This time, the Oxfordshire Police struggle to put the pieces together when a strange case of what at first appears to be a burglary gone wrong reaches their department. DI Fawley and his team work to solve the puzzle and create a timeline that spans decades and involves a family tragedy and many red herrings.