What’s it all about?:
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY’RE HIDING IN THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR?
From the author of CLOSE TO HOME, comes the second pulse-pounding DI Fawley crime thriller.
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. And 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 . . .
What did I think?:
Unashamed fan-girling ahead. You have been warned. I’m probably one of Cara Hunter’s biggest fans after adoring her debut novel, Close To Home last year with my sister, Chrissi Reads which was the first in a new series starring Detective Inspector Adam Fawley. Then I was delighted to discover that In The Dark, the follow up was coming out much sooner than I anticipated. So of course I loved the first one so much I immediately put it on pre order at Amazon and it pinged onto my Kindle on the 12th July making for a very happy Beth. Now I love a good thriller and it used to be all I would exclusively read however, I found them all getting a bit “samey,” and I stopped reading them for a while, getting slightly bored and disillusioned with the genre as a whole. Then there came two of my favorite British authors writing in crime today – Sarah Hilary and now Cara Hunter. The way they write their novels/series is just DIFFERENT, I’m not sure if I can even explain it. Both ladies have the gift of creating such authentic, believable characters and neither author shies away from the grittier reality of the crimes that they explore in their stories.
Cara Hunter, author of In The Dark (DI Adam Fawley #2).
If you’ve read the story of Daisy Mason in Close To Home and think that was dark and twisted I’m afraid it’s got nothing on this horrifying case DI Adam Fawley and his team of intrepid detectives are about to investigate. It involves a young woman and a child who are found trapped in a basement, presumably after having been captive there for a number of months/years. The gentleman who owns (and still lives) in the house is suffering from dementia but in his more lucid moments, he denies knowing anything about their existence. So what is the truth? Fawley must draw on all his resources to untangle the tangled web of deceit and potentially uncover a link to another crime involving the disappearance of a young woman, but this plot is much more convoluted than he ever could have expected.
The beautiful city of Oxford which In The Dark calls its home.
I had a sneaking suspicion Cara Hunter was going to become one of my favorite authors and that has definitely been confirmed with the majesty of In The Dark, a nail-biting, gripping read where you really have no idea what’s coming. We have a slow release of breadcrumbs of clues along the way, followed by an ever so gradual reveal which has you questioning how on earth she managed to pull together all the strands of this plot in the first place! As always, the characters are everything and really make this series something to be savoured, leisurely and deliberately. Although Fawley is of course our lead, one of the greatest thing about this series is that we find out so much about the other detectives on the case in addition to our main man. You know when an author focuses on one lead and it’s obvious they’ve put all their efforts into them as the rest of the characters feel slightly hazy in comparison? Not the case with this series. ALL the characters have their own personalities, their own quirks and their own questionable actions. In short, they all feel like people who really exist, who you might know in “real life,” and this is one of the very many reasons why this series is such a delight to read.
I’ve already mentioned how twisted and intricate the plot is but let me re-iterate it once more. I should perhaps learn to expect something astronomically distorted with this author’s work but twice now she’s managed to shock and surprise me. I’m enamoured with the way she uses interview and social media transcripts and newspaper articles to compliment her story and like Close To Home, this was used once more to wonderful effect. It not only gave me a short break from all the tension, schemes and madness but also whetted my appetite for what was to come. This is a series I can confirm with every confidence in the world that I will DEFINITELY be continuing with and one of the few series that I can also see myself sticking with for however long it runs for. There’s so many times I’ve just lost interest in an author’s work after a disappointing installment but I really don’t see that happening with DI Adam Fawley – it’s just too good to miss out on.
Would I recommend it?:
But of course!
Star rating (out of 5):
