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

Synopsis from Good Reads:

They know who did it. Perhaps not consciously. Perhaps not yet. But they know. 

When eight-year-old Daisy Mason vanishes from her family’s Oxford home during a costume party, Detective Inspector Adam Fawley knows that nine times out of ten, the offender is someone close to home. And Daisy’s family is certainly strange—her mother is obsessed with keeping up appearances, while her father is cold and defensive under questioning. And then there’s Daisy’s little brother, so withdrawn and uncommunicative . . .

DI Fawley works against the clock to find any trace of the little girl, but it’s as if she disappeared into thin air—no one saw anything; no one knows anything. But everyone has an opinion, and everyone, it seems, has a secret to conceal.

This book, guys! It’s SO GOOD! Why has no one told me how good this is? In any case, I am here to tell you to go read this book!

Close to Home kept me guessing the whole time. Did one of my guesses end up being right? Sure, but I had about 9 theories going at the same time and I really didn’t commit to the real conclusion until only a few pages before it was revealed. Hunter did an incredible job of making numerous red herrings seem not just plausible, but likely.

The characterization was really great, as well. I really hated the Masons and I just wanted to find out what the deal was with this crazy family. I also really liked all of the police officers. It’s not often in these type of books that the members of the police force are so likable, but they were here. I can’t wait to read more about them. Adam Fawley was a great main character. Even though he had a tragic backstory, he was not some cliched, half-way functioning alcoholic. He was a good detective and he was also a good person.

I thought I would hate the non-traditional formatting with it’s lack of proper chapters, but it actually ended up working for me. It kept the pace very steady and it made it so much easier for me to keep reading right past my bedtime. I loved the multiple POVs and timelines utilized, as well as the tweets. I feel this book helps prove my theory that Twitter is the worst thing to ever happen to society (and yes, I say that knowing that I will tweet a link to this review). The whole Trial by Twitter thing is so relevant to our world today and I thought it was really smart to include it here.

The only tiny thing I didn’t like about the book was that I wanted more details for the conclusion. We’re given enough answers to know what happens, but I would have liked to have known all the little details on how we got there. It was just a little too vague to fully satisfy me, but this is me just being nit-picky.

Overall, I just loved Close to Home. I loved the characters and the writing and the mystery. I am blown away that this is Cara Hunter’s debut book. It was so cleverly written and I never wanted to put it down. This is my favorite book of the year so far and Hunter has made her way onto my favorite authors list. I can’t wait to read the next book!

Overall Rating (out of 5): 4.5 Stars