The 2021 Round-up – Part 1

Happy New Year! Now that 2021 is well and truly in the can, and I’ve started reading books due to be published in 2022, I think it’s safe to present the list of books that stood out for me over the past twelve months. I read 102 books in 2021 and, after much agonising and […]

THE WHOLE TRUTH by Cara Hunter

THE WHOLE TRUTH Cara Hunter Penguin Books (penguin.co.uk) £7.99 A sexual assault and harassment complaint seems an unusual case to land on Detective Inspector Adam Fawley’s desk, but that’s where it ends up. A university student’s word against a well-respected professor. Except there’s a twist. Strapping rugby player Caleb Morgan claims that the diminutive Marina […]

ALL THE RAGE by Cara Hunter

ALL THE RAGE Cara Hunter Penguin Books (penguin.co.uk) £7.99 Teenager Faith Appleford is abducted from a bus stop on the busy Oxford road during the morning rush hour, bundled into a van and taken to a shed on an allotment. Before her abductor can finish what he started, he is frightened off by the sound […]

NO WAY OUT by Cara Hunter

NO WAY OUT Cara Hunter Penguin Books (www.penguin.co.uk) £7.99 A house fire in an upmarket area of North Oxford leads to the gruesome discovery of two dead children. There is no sign of their mother, and their father – who was in London at a conference – isn’t answering his phone, or responding to any […]

The 2018 Round-Up

As a new year dawns, it’s time to look back on my reading habits for the past twelve months, and pick out those books that really stood out for me this year. As I do so, it occurs to me that I didn’t do a 2017 round-up, thereby depriving my regular reader of the wisdom […]

IN THE DARK by Cara Hunter

IN THE DARK Cara Hunter Viking (www.penguin.co.uk) £7.99 A crumbling wall leads to a gruesome discovery for a home renovator when he discovers that a young woman and a toddler are trapped in a dark room in the basement of the house next door. The old man who lives in the house, despite his belligerence […]

CLOSE TO HOME by Cara Hunter

CLOSE TO HOME Cara Hunter Penguin (www.penguin.co.uk) £7.99 Eight-year-old Daisy Mason goes missing from her Oxford home during a party to celebrate the end of the school year. When DI Adam Fawley arrives on the scene he finds parents who seem to be more worried about how they’ll be seen by their neighbours than by […]