Close to Home

I’d like to thank Penguin Random House for a digital advanced readers copy of this book.

3.5 stars but good enough to lean towards 4.

When 8 year old Daisy Mason goes missing, everyone hopes she has come to no harm. As each passing day goes by, everyone fears the worst. To complicate matters more, no one is being completely honest with investigators. Should her parents be the primary suspects or is there a stranger lurking with sinister thoughts? What really happened to Daisy?

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the plot was well developed and the story itself kept me guessing until the very end. Furthermore, I liked the writing format Cara Hunter used. The book alternates between present day and what was happening in the Masons’ lives months before the disappearance. Gradually the past events move to present day so the reader gets a complete (but perhaps not reliable) understanding of what is behind Daisy’s disappearance. Beyond the shifting timeframes, the story also has social media posts from the public commenting on the case, as well as news media updates. I have to say that these additions to the story are quite powerful. They lend credence to how much influence public opinion can have on cases involving missing children. (The case against the Ramseys with the disappearance of Jon-Benet came to mind several times while I was reading this book.)

I had two slight criticisms however. First, I thought the character development could have been better. With that said, by the end of the book, I felt I had a relatively good understanding of Detective Fawley and of the Mason parents. Hunter draws the reader into Fawley’s personal life quickly when you learn he has suffered a tragedy but you don’t know exactly what occurred. As far as the parents, (in particular Sharon, the mother), the reader is given a rather detailed history of her past. She becomes a character worth loathing and pitying simultaneously. Other characters in the book didn’t come to life for me because I learned so little about them. My second criticism was that there may have been a few too many plot twists where new information was discovered or witnesses suddenly remember something. I’m sure this was an attempt to keep the reader guessing, but to me if felt a little like overkill.

The ending has left me curious though. I can’t honestly say whether I think the story is resolved or whether it will continue on in future books. Either way, I’ll be sure to the read the next installment in the series!

One note for sensitive readers: This book involves pretty tough issues such as physical and sexual abuse of children, bullying, and self-harm. There are no graphic scenes that I recall, just discussion.

This was an excellent read: it was disturbing, off-putting, engaging, and confusing, all at exactly the right moments and with exactly the right degree of each balanced against the others. The slow revelation of DI Fawley’s own personal story – which doesn’t come into full cover until literally the bitter end – was a brilliant overplay for the story of the missing Daisy Mason, and the parallels (which the reader is correctly and incorrectly lead to, throughout the course of this twisty Mobius strip of a story) made the tension twice as thick and juicy to work through. I will definitely be on the look out for more from Cara Hunter. She has a great writing style, offering just the right level of detail to keep you thoroughly hooked without ever feeling mired in the weeds. I knew wild and unpredictable things were coming from the get-go, but was still surprised by the tone and tenor of many of them – and even those that I anticipated were presented well and kept me engaged and entertained with their pitch-perfect presentation. This is a story with so many secrets at play; it could easily have felt overdone or melodramatic. Instead it managed to stay just to the sharp side of the knife’s edge, alternating gentle builds with blunt-force trauma reveals that kept me thoroughly engaged from the first pages.

My review copy was provided by the Penguin First to Read program.

This is a very good police procedural which moves the reader briskly through the story. The author uses various techniques to achieve the pace:
• The main detective, with the backstory of a terrible personal tragedy, is a first person narrator who tells the reader what s/he needs to know about the case. (Telling has its place despite creative writing tutors insisting that only showing will do.)
• The narrative is interspersed with short flashbacks to hours, days or weeks before Daisy’s disappearance. Little used these days, the universal viewpoint works well here.
• Several of the interviews with witnesses and suspects are printed as police statements or transcripts of police interviews. This is a quick way to cover a lot of ground.
• There are also interludes of Twitter stream. Well-wishers and trolls alike pronounce on the investigation like a Greek chorus from classical times. (I have to say it took me a while to make sense of the Tweets as the layout was odd on my Kindle.)
• The author keeps the number of suspects to a minimum so the focus remains tight and the characters are not given much light and shade. The two main suspects are vile to the point of pantomime, but that seemed to fit with the author’s intention to press forward.
I’d definitely read another book by Cara Hunter.

A mazey, gripping story.

I will be honest. British crime novels don’t always grab me. They can be too much tell, not enough show. Fact driven instead of plot driven, and gritty to the point of sandpaper on the brain. Close To Home by Cara Hunter is not one of those books.

In telling the story of eight year old Daisy Mason’s disappearance the reader grapples with every parent’s worst nightmare. A child gone missing preys on our deepest fears because only true monsters harm children. The monsters in Daisy’s life, however, are disturbingly normal. A harried father with a roving eye and a jealous mother obsessed with what others think. A brother who may or may not be disturbed. Other little girls who aren’t exactly made of sugar and spice. The secrets come out of the middle class woodwork as those around Daisy come apart. Even the dective trying to solve the crime has demons.

That’s what makes this book a delicious read. On the surface, it’s a police procedural that follows the investigation of a child’s disaapearance. But behind the scenes it’s about family, and what makes a family come apart. It’s about how we judge people in social media and how very wrong those judgments can be. There is a lot of judgment in these pages, and why not? The author makes it so easy.

But in the midst of the judging and the secrets and the grinding wherls of justice is Daisy herself, and at the risk of including a spoiler, everything you think you know about her is wrong. There is a twist at the end, and you will not find what you expect. But you will appreciate how Daisy’s fate unfolds and you may agree with the perpetrator that everyone got their just desserts.

I am glad to see that Cara Hunter is continuing the story of Detective Adam Fawley in her next book. There is more to him than the deep pool of regret he wades through in Close To Home. It will be interesting to see what happens to him next.

This book keeps you guessing until the very end. Hard to put down. Satisfying ending. This author has now been added to my favorites list.

Close to Home hit the ground running and didn’t stop right until the final page . . . the last [twist] was a genuine stroke of genius . . . told in a unique, modern way that sets the bar for new crime writers . . . the last time I felt that excited by a book was A Kind Worth Killing.

An amazing, fast-paced thrill-ride and one of the best crime thrillers I have ever read! An exciting plot combined with top quality writing—just perfect!