But, I did get a kick out of a character who had a major role in The Whole Truth, making a brief cameo in this one. Although I enjoyed this, number six in the series, I did find myself tiring of what felt like an excessive use of artifacts. Lastly, the covers are still awful - mass market, crime fiction trashy artwork, please could we have some original artwork? Cara Hunter has found a way to present her work in a way that comes close to offering the best of both worlds. When they arrive, they find an elderly couple, Richard and Peggy Swann, with the body of a young man in their kitchen.

The Oxford setting of these novels always takes me back to reading the brilliant Inspector Morse stories by Colin Dexter. I really enjoy Hunter’s writing style and I find it absolutely fascinating the way she includes interview transcripts, newspaper clippings and TV scripts to bring the story to life. It’s truly a case of fact being stranger than fiction and worth looking up the reports or podcast made about her after finishing the novel.The format is so often hackneyed with stereotypical characters and plots that are ridiculously far-fetched, scripted in yawningly melodramatic fashion. They used to be Dick and Peggy Rowan and their daughter, Camilla, was convicted around 17 years ago of killing her baby 5 years before that when she was 17.

Hunter’s excellent outline of the characters at the start of the book is a wonderful memory refresher for fans of the books and would also be helpful to those new to the series. As the police investigate we discover the Swann's are indeed hiding a secret from their past and are not the bland couple they appear to be.Cara Hunter is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling crime novels Close to Home, In the Dark, No Way Out, All the Rage and The Whole Truth all featuring DI Adam Fawley and his Oxford-based police team. When the police discover a connection to a high-profile case from years ago, involving a child's murder and an alleged miscarriage of justice, the press go wild. And when the couple are found to have a connection to a high profile murder trial 20 years ago everything becomes very complicated. The dead man, his face been destroyed by a blast from a shotgun, is holding a knife in his hand and the Swanns claim they woke to him breaking in and shot him in self-defence. they make some shocking discoveries and my jaw literally drops on occasions and possibly the odd little naughty may be uttered at some of the explosive revelations.

They sure have poked a bear, opened a can of worms et cetera et cetera and every other idiom involving hornets and so on. Unlike The Last Housewife which boasted a "podcast" element aka basic transcription formatting, Hunter goes above and beyond.Richard and Margaret Swann don’t appear to be murderers, but their stories don’t match up and the evidence contradicts what they say really happened.

It probably helps that the setting is local to me so I can really see what's going on but also because the main characters, our well known group dynamic, are so brilliantly drawn and relatable.The shooting incident in the present day and the entire background relating to Camilla Rowan is so clever and intricate, not to mention endlessly interesting, as every piece of evidence, every breakthrough and every witness testimony, added a new perspective on things. As she did with the previous novel, Cara Hunter provides a little background précis of the central characters at the start of the book, which shows wonderful practical consideration for her audience. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Like most of the books in this series the storyline is very tense and there is an eagerness to get to the end to find the perpetrator. Three new characters joined Adam’s team, and they were all great additions, even if they weren’t all particularly likeable.