Hope to Die

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I think there is some benefit in reading at least one of the other books first for character development and to maximise the enjoyment of the story, however, each of the stories has its uniqueness. There were also transcripts of the Netflix series, and transcripts of police interviews, which I really loved as it eliminated the need for body language descriptions and dialogue tags, yet conveyed pertinent points concisely and succinctly. 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 most effective one here by a mile is the transcripts from the Netflix documentary, which are super authentic and leave you hungry for more information.

As always, the police investigation feels credible and realistic – the steps and breakthroughs are logical and clear so there’s no suspension of disbelief required. Sorry for those that have to wait until the Publication Date: 18th August, 2022, but it will be well worth it. While delving into the couple who were burglarized he finds they are a connected to a high profile case a few years ago. The Oxford setting of these novels always takes me back to reading the brilliant Inspector Morse stories by Colin Dexter. 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.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. This is the sixth in Cara Hunter’s Oxford based crime thrillers featuring DI Adam Fawley and this time Hunter turns away from the domestic worries of her regular cast and sticks firmly to the mystery in hand. Richard's wife backs up his story that an intruder had broken in downstairs and Richard shot him in self defence. 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. The sub-plot about Somer is quite sad, but the three new additions to the team are all great and it does not take long to get to know them.

Whittling my suspects down with very clever story telling, a very entertaining read and another hit from one of my favourite authors. Written like others in the series, with lots of police interviews and TV scripts amongst other formats making up the bulk of the text. He has a dependable team who work hard to identify the mystery ‘burglar’ and his link to the Swanns. 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. My favourite feedback is when readers tell me it's like getting the raw material of the case, so they can be detectives themselves.Despite these slight misgivings I enjoyed Hope to Die and will certainly look for book seven when it comes out.