Making A Killing by Cara Hunter
Published by Harper Fiction/Hemlock Press
Publication Date: 13th February 2025
Huge thanks to the publisher for allowing me early access to this fabulous book via NetGalley.
Book Description:
In 2016, eight-year-old Daisy Mason vanished from her Oxford home.
Her disappearance made the national press and the final culprit shocked everyone. DCI Adam Fawley remembers the case well, he arrested Daisy’s mother for murder himself.
But her body was never found.
Now, forensic evidence at a current murder scene calls the whole case into question. DCI Adam Fawley and the team are brought back in to investigate. And they all have one question on their minds.
What really happened to Daisy Mason?
My Thoughts:
To say there was one overly excited reader here when I opened the notification from Netgalley with the approval for this book is possibly the biggest understatement of 2024! I have followed the Adam Fawley series from book 1, Close to Home, and have pushed it into the hands of many a reader seeking a guaranteed page turner since 2017. But, that said, as it was some 7 years plus since I read that first instalment, I decided a refresher read was necessary before I dived in to book 7. A decision well-made as it brought all the details of the Daisy Mason disappearance back ready for reference as Adam and the team were forced to revisit the case that put both her parents behind bars. There's a handy introduction to the significant characters at the start of the book which, if you have bought the book not realising its background, is really useful.
The story begins, as with many discoveries of murder victims, with a dog walker stumbling across a shallow grave - but the can of worms the discovery opens isn't immediately obvious. There's a missing uni student in the locality, so it makes sense that first guesses to the identity of the victim point in her direction. Forensic tests on the body and associated evidence soon shift the focus - but what they're saying seems impossible, as the DNA they've found belongs to someone who couldn't possibly have been there: Daisy.
Cara Hunter has used her signature method of including photos, social media posts, newspaper clippings, and emails along the way to portray the public mood toward the case and information being fed between the investigators. I love this method as the reader can put the pieces together themselves alongside the detectives as the story progresses.
OK so it would be most unlikely for the detectives who got things so spectacularly wrong first time around to be quite involved in this new case, but if you can ignore that (which I found extremely easy to do) you will love the journey this book takes you on. It explores not just what happened 8 years ago, but the effects that whole experience had on everyone involved. Which would infuriate Daisy because - as always - it's not all about her!
The ending is fantastic but will annoy some readers as the remaining loose ends dangle some tantalising tasters for possible further instalments in this series. Which makes me very happy - I just hope we don't have to wait another 8 years for the answers!
About the Author:
Cara Hunter is the author of instant New York Times bestselling thriller Murder in the Family as well as the Sunday Times bestselling crime novels featuring DI Adam Fawley and his Oxford-based police team. Of those novels, Close to Home was shortlisted for Crime Book of the Year in the British Book Awards 2019 and No Way Out was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 100 best crime novels since 1945. Cara’s books have sold more than a million copies worldwide. She lives in Oxford, on a street not unlike those featured in her books.
Find out more at cara-hunter.com
