Book Review: Close to Home by Cara Hunter (DI Adam Fawley #1)

Happy publication day to Cara Hunter, Close to Home is out today!

Book Description:

SOMEONE TOOK DAISY MASON… SOMEONE YOU KNOW. Last night, eight-year-old Daisy Mason disappeared from a family party. No one in the quiet suburban street saw anything – or at least that’s what they’re saying. DI Adam Fawley is trying to keep an open mind. But he knows the nine times out of ten, it’s someone the victim knew. That means someone is lying… And that Daisy’s time is running out. Introducing DI Fawley and his team of Oxford detectives.

My Thoughts:

Close to Home is the first book in a new police procedural crime series featuring DI Adam Fawley, and oh my, is it a good one! Close to Home is a gripping read, very early on you’re hit with a turn of events that grabs your full attention; then, that’s followed shortly after by another game changing piece of information – and well, by then, this book has a hold of you, and you just have to accept that you will not be able to return to your daily tasks until you’ve finished this book!

That was the case for me – the plot starts off simple but the more you progress the more complex it becomes, while you’re certain it’s someone close to home who took Daisy, you just can’t figure out who and that’s what makes this novel so addictive. I was constantly backing and forthing on who I thought was guilty.

There were three things that really stood out for me in this novel. Firstly, it incorporated an interview format when people were being questioned and this made it feel like I was hearing the information first-hand. Also, you get to see tweets and Facebook messages from the media and the public and this gave the plot a strong element of realism because we’ve all seen it happening in real life – how the public take to social media and condemn those they think are guilty or send well-wishes to those that are hurting.

Secondly, I love that this novel has a strong investigative element with only a smidgen of Fawley’s personal life. Now, I’m a huge fan of the flawed detective and I’m all about the main character’s backstory but what Hunter did here was so clever. We know that Adam Fawley has pain in his past and we see snippets of this, we can see he’s a complex character, but we don’t delve too deep into his pain – like Hunter is showing us ‘hey, I’ve created this great character but we’ve only touched the surface in this novel’, and that makes me excited to read the next book in the series, to get to know Fawley better.

Thirdly, we get a bit of courtroom drama in this one, seeing the suspect sweat it out in court was one of my favourite parts of this novel.

The idea of the missing child is not a new one but Hunter has taken this idea and made it her own; she’s incorporated a lot into this novel without making it feel like too much is going on. I’m really excited to continue this series and I highly recommend you get on board and read Close to Home.

This book is available to buy from: Amazon UK / Book Depository

*My thanks to the publisher (Penguin Books UK/Viking) for allowing me access to a digital copy of this title via Netgalley*