Book Review: Close to Home by Cara Hunter

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So I follow Cara Hunter on Twitter. It happened so that her latest book was up on NetGalley for review and. the blurb sounded so wonderful that I applied and got rejected. But I discovered DI Adam Fawley in the meantime, so I had to pick up the first in the series na, keeping with my personal agenda- reading the first book in a series where a DI makes her/ his first appearance.

So here I am with the review of Close To Home the first book in the DI Adam Fawley series that was released in 2018. An 8 year old girl Daisy Mason goes missing, apparently from her house where a huge party is going on. Gradually it is found that no one can confirm seeing the child at the party. Then it comes to the knowledge of the Detective Inspector Adam Fawley who is heading the investigation that neither of the parent can say for sure if they had seen their child since the time she left for school in the morning. Things began to get shadier as it is discovered that the father has a roving eye and the mother has a sinister secret buried in her past. They also have a son Leo, whose behaviour everyone on the police team finds strange but can't put a finger on. Slowly more revelations  come to the fore and it is also known that Leo is an adopted child. DI Fawley and his team try to decipher more about Daisy by tracing her life, meeting her friends and teachers. Like the peels of an onion the detectives unravel the lives and persona of the Masons, which sometimes elicits a sigh of relief and at others tears of sheer agony. But even when the detectives manage to solve the case, the story doesn't end and then when it ends you want to go back to the beginning with a fine toothed comb to see what could you have missed to have guessed the unexpected ending.

As with almost all women writers writing crime, Close To Home is gripping and moves fast. You
might expect things to become clear at every turn but they keep getting muddling with every detail that emerges about the case and the characters involved. In the meantime we get stories about the other characters that form the detective team like Everett and Gislingham woven alongside Daisy's story deftly. Leo's story strikes a chord with Fawley and we discover his son and the tragedy that visited his family sometime back. But I must really thank the author for ensuring that DI Adam Fawley is not an addict or depressed (maybe, but then who wouldn't be in his shoes but that doesn't lead to drinking bouts or anything else harmful or provoking rage).


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