I always enjoy the way Cara Hunter tells a story using a variety of formats including Netflix extracts this time and, as always, Adam‘s perspective and with good injections of humour. 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.

I think the ending was supposed to be a shock so was a bit disappointed because it really wasn't at all. As we should all be aware by now, feeding ducks bread is bad because the food has little nutritional value and can harm ducklings' growth, pollute waterways and attract rodents and other pests. 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.There are no chapters, aside from a prologue and epilogue, but there are frequent paragraph breaks every time there’s a scene/POV shift. Cara Hunter has recently adopted a practice that I thoroughly approve in crime novels, that of including a dramatis personae at the beginning. An all round winner, and I have no hesitation in recommending this book, and the entire series, to mystery, crime, thriller, psychological suspense, domestic drama, and police procedural fans. I don't give out many 5-star ratings for book reviews, but "Hope to Die" fully deserves that top mark. it develops character and back-story instead, with the result that readers become invested in the plot.

There are some new characters in this book and some of the characters from the previous books play only a minor role but it's still a terrific read. The writing is often informal as it contains some light-hearted moments in a way that it is almost sharing a private joke with the reader, which is particularly enjoyable if you are familiar with all the books in the series. Long held secrets from the past are about to be revealed, cold cases will be re-examined, and tough as this case will be to crack, Fawley and his team pull out all the stops, to bring one cold, calculating individual to justice. 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 shooter and his wife claim self-defense, but when a connection is made to a decade's old case, DI Adam Fawley and his team are under immense pressure to discover the truth. I’m such a sucker for formats that include like you said mixture of narrative, transcripts of interviews, Wikipedia-style entries, online chats, letters, news headlines so that alone would make me pick this book up. What at first seems like an easy case of an intruder being shot by an elderly man in his home, turns into a complex and twisty case that has links to a high profile case of convicted child killer, Camilla Rowan. As Adam and his hardworking team look into the past, at the previous police investigation and Camilla as a schoolgirl, her multiple pregnancies, her friends and family, and the present, who is the dead man and how did he come to make the fateful visit to the farmhouse to see the Swanns?

Sorry for those that have to wait until the Publication Date: 18th August, 2022, but it will be well worth it. For any prospective readers who may find themselves in a similar situation, I am pleased to tell you that you can simply pick this series up at this point without it having any adverse effect on your enjoyment.Overall a very enjoyable read with some breakneck twists and turns is sure to keep readers pinned to their seats! The same list of characters still appear, with one or two interesting additions to the investigative team. 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.