Love Cara Hunter and her DI Fawley novels and No Way Out (her third) is the best of the bunch so far. So many twists and turns in solving this murder mystery. The author's style of writing really pulls the reader in.

The book begins when a fire breaks out in a house in Oxford and it it seems like arson. A young boy dies and his brother is fighting for his life. No sign of the parents. DI Adam Fawley and his team are on the case but DI Fawley also has personal issues in his own life, his wife has left him and this case resonates with him having lost his own child.

The plot in this book was excellent, fast paced, addictive, full of twist and turns. Hooked from start to finish.. A must read!

I was unable to download this to my kindle for some bizarre reason 🤔

Sorry I was unable to give feedback this time.

I enjoyed this story..

Middle-class, suburban family......husband university lecturer, wife,two sons. Book opens with their house on fire and being almost destroyed; eventually bodies are found in the debris (no spoilers).
The work of the fire investigators and the police was well researched and made the book very believable. At times it did seem real........certainly a page turner.

An excellent story with interesting characters and a plot that kept me hooked from the start. I got a little lost when the narrative moved about from one method to another but once I realised who was who I got over that little niggle.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good who done it and I certainly didn’t work it out correctly.

‘No Way Out’ is an efficient, nicely detailed police procedural that didn’t work quite as well for me as I would have expected it to. On paper it has everything I like in this kind of book - a varied cast, lots of forensic information and a good enough premise. In the end though it felt too much like other things, without enough of a hook of its own to pull me in.
The book centers on the investigation of a house fire by DI Adam Fawley and his team in the Thames Valley Police. Naturally there are bodies in the charred remains of the house, as well as a strong suspicion of foul play. It’s the third Fawley book, but the first that I’ve read. It’s clear that a lot has gone on in the earlier books as there a numerous references back to previous events, both the crimes the team have investigated and the details of their personal lives. Author Cara Hunter handles this well, summarising what has gone before without dropping too many spoilers. I never felt like I was missing things because I hadn’t read the other books, but I also don’t feel like they’ve now been ruined for me.
The Oxford setting means you can’t help but compare it to Colin Dexter’s brilliant ‘Inspector Morse’ novels, and sadly it’s just not as good. The main issue I had is that the mystery never really got under my skin. You know how sometimes when you read a detective story the desire to know what really happened is all consuming? That just wasn’t the case here. Worse still, I didn’t feel like Fawley and team cared that much either. Too often it felt like they were doing a job rather than crusading for justice. I suspect that this is in fact the reality of modern policing, but it doesn’t make for brilliant reading.
That’s not to say that the book is awful. The story is relatively simple, but Hunter tells it in quite a complicated and interesting way, with a mixture of third and first person perspective (the first being Fawley). She also includes present day narrative on the investigation and extended flashbacks on the build up to the crime that flesh things out. On top of that, there are numerous sections which come from other sources: excerpts of police interviews, stories from news websites, and so on. These sometimes work well (although there were some formatting issues in the Advanced Reader Copy I had) but often feel like they don’t add enough to the story to justify the pages they take up.
The characters feel convincing, especially the family that are the victims of the fire, but critically I didn’t really care about any of them. That may be why the mystery didn’t grip me and it certainly left me wanting to finish the book so I could read something else rather than because I wanted closure.
‘No Way Out’ is a book that’s entering a very crowded marketplace, and while it has some original ideas (especially in the way the story is told), it ended up feeling like a bit of an also ran to me. Not terrible by any means, and if you love this kind of thing it might well be for you, but for me it lacked the spark needed to make it essential reading.

Continuing her DI Adam Fawley series set in Oxford, Cara Hunter takes us to the scene of the crime on the first page of her third novel. A magnificent North Oxford house is on fire, a small child dead at the scene and a young boy fighting for his life. Their parents are nowhere to be found.
It is the responsibility of DI Adam Fawley and his team to locate the missing adults and to work out what has actually happened to this seemingly conventional, respectable, prosperous and successful family. As ever, Cara Hunter’s carefully knitted plot threads lead the reader through the narrative. The detectives travel to London and Brighton as well as scrutinising the Oxford neighbourhood before the answer is revealed. And it’s a plausible one too. The author builds up the protagonists’ personalities and motives so convincingly over the course of the novel, allowing us to look back at the life of the Esmond family in the months before the fire as well as forward to the final outcome.
However, Hunter does not only focus on the victims and criminals. She also takes us to a greater understanding of the relationships between the detectives working out of the Oxford station and of their personal lives. As in her earlier work, this novel explores the dynamics between parents and their children whilst Adam Fawley continues to mourn the death of his son, this feeling of loss made worse by only sporadic contact with his estranged wife Alex.
Another engrossing read from Cara Hunter who understands that the best sort of police procedural allows the reader to become as involved in every development as those investigating the crime, who grow in understanding not just about how it has happened but in addition why.
My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

An intriguing read that I was desperately trying to work out from the very beginning. The Esmond family home is destroyed in a catastrophic fire that also claims the lives of two innocent children. But as the investigations into the fire develop it quickly comes to light that this was no accident and that their parents have seemingly disappeared into thin air.

I didn't know that this was part of a series and I have never read any of the DI Adam Fawley books but this really does not matter as it can be read as a standalone book.

Hunter keeps us guessing to the very end. Everytime I thought I had it figured out I was then proven wrong. An amazing read that I would 100% recommend.

A house fire shortly after Christmas leads to the death of a three year old boy and his mother. A ten year old boy is in a serious condition in hospital. The fire brigade believes it’s arson but the police can’t trace the father who was at a conference in London. Did someone have a grudge against the family or has the father killed his family? DI Adam Fawley and his team investigate. Adam is struggling himself as his wife has gone to stay with her sister for a while and he is worried that she isn’t coming back. Love this series - each book keeps you guessing the whole way through. Looking forward to the next one.

Thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Books and Cara Hunter for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

Beast book I've read in a long time. Doesn't disappoint. Loved it, a realtor thriller keeps you hooked the while way through

If this is your first encounter with Cara Hunter's DI Fawley then I have good news - there's more! This is another carefully structured story in which patient detective work yields results in a credible and satisfying way, but which is brought to life by the way Ms Hunter builds characters and gives them real personalities. The back stories of key players are given the correct significance within the narrative: enough to lend credibility to their characters but not so much that they interfere with the storyline. Ms Hunter's writing is fluent and a pleasure to read; her careful use of literary devices to introduce social media and news items is precisely calibrated to add to the story without interfereing with the narrative flow. The story could be drawn from the news in any typical day and it is to Ms Hunter's credit that she manages to introduce clever plot twists and turns without straining the reader's credulity. Highly recommended

I am fast becoming a fan of Cara Hunter's novels.
An excellent, solid thriller with several twists told in a kind of 'Curl up on the sofa all weekend and cancel the housework' tradition but with a modern twist which, now that social media and online news reports are more widespread, we can all relate to.
I loved it.
I read Close to Home and loved that one too but I'd forgotten just how enthralling the writer's style of storytelling can be.
I rarely give 5 stars but felt this was totally deserved.

I was excited to receive my ecopy of this novel as I have read and enjoyed Cara Hunter's work before. I was a little concerned that she might not have been able to keep up her previous high quality but I was far from disappointed.

The characters we have met in earlier books continue to grow and are all believable, and in the main, likeable.

No Way Out is to me, the best of Hunter's work so far. So many twists and turns in the build up and conclusion of police work in solving this murder mystery and in the police characters' personal lives also.

I thought I'd solved the crime so many times with so many plausible reasons and characters coming to light but I was fooled right up until the end, quite brilliant.

I did however, have my doubts about the dog's death as in my own personal experience it would take more than that to actually kill a previously healthy dog, but I'm no vet.

Another fine book in the DI Fawley series.
Two children pulled from a raging house fire. Mother is missing. Father is unreachable.
The answers lie in family history and altered plans.
A “must read” book.
#carahunter,#nowayout,#netgalley

Interesting approach to the narrative in this book, enjoyed it and will be reading others works by this author.

Love this series! And this third book has just cemented it as my favourite series this year. It can be read as a stand-alone, but you would be doing yourself a dis-service if you didn't read those too!
No Way Out is an excellent story about the brilliant DI Fawley and his team trying to solve an arson case that is anything but straightforward. Beautifully plotted and written with all the twists and misdirections you can think of, I can't wait to see what comes next!

I was intrigued by this book from the very beginning. I liked the use of official reports, especially the opening one from the Fire Department. The characters and their motivations interested me and I openly admit that I didn’t work out the denouement. I actually stayed up last night into the small hours to finish this book as I knew I wouldn’t sleep without knowing what happened. I haven’t read any books by Cara Hunter before but I’m certain this won’t be the last, particularly as I liked the police characters who presumably appear in her previous books.

Enjoyed it to start of with and was quite gripping however I did find the story went of a lot in the middle and there was a lot of rambling, definitely didn’t enjoy it as much as the first book in the series.

No Way Out is Cara Hunter’s third book in the DI Adam Fawley series and it is every bit as captivating, pacey and clever as the others, if not more so. Cara’s style is, unique, refreshing and excitingly modern, with content added to the narrative in the form of emails, social-media chatter, news boards and interview transcriptions. It may sound overwhelming but it is so perfectly placed in the story that it brings a gamut of full on stimulation. Sometimes to hear major and essential information from a news source or police transcription report, creates a more effective impact, and this is handled throughout with such careful control.

The great crime procedurals have teams of characters that bring depth and context. The amazing writing ability Cara brings to her wonderful cast of characters is that we become engrossed in their lives, and the relationships they have amongst themselves and personally, without diluting from an incredibly traumatic, fascinating and suspense driven plot.

The story starts with the details coming through of a house fire in Oxford that completely destroys the Esmond family home and sees 2 children pulled from the wreckage – Zachary who died in the fire but his older brother Mattie is still alive but clinging to life in a hospital ICU. Samantha Esmond, their mother, is missing and the father, Michael, is away at an academic conference in London, and cannot be tracked down. The plot slowly unfolds as investigative results open up avenues that a team of expert detectives led by DI Fawley and his acting DS, Chris Gislingham know how to probe and dig, and pull it all together. It is utterly absorbing how the elements are delicately revealed without the need for the big dramatic shift to the end game. The plotting is intelligently layered and each team member brings their own skills and experiences in advancing the investigation.

The mood of the story is impressively managed as it switches from the distressing realisation that a child has died and the harrowing discoveries that are still to come, to the resolute, sometimes monotonous, investigative activities that a tenacious team of detectives are determined to resolve. This case resonates with them, particularly Fawley, as he lost a child some years back and his marriage is falling apart as a consequence.

Cara’s wonderful array of characters, clever gripping plot, and detail delivered through various interesting formats ensure this will be a well-deserved best-selling novel. I would highly recommend this book – in fact, it’s a must-read. Cara is one of the best crime thriller writers around today.

I would like to thank Cara Hunter, Penguin Books UK and NetGalley for an ARC version of the book in return for an honest review.

i enjoyed reading this book seeing how the police have to track everything down to get to what happened, how the fire started and why the house was burnt down..

I have been waiting very (im)patiently for the next instalment of the DI Fawley series , desperate to know what Cara Hunter had in store next for Adam and his team.

The opening scenes throw the reader straight into the action with the team being called to a severe house fire where it is clear virtually from the off that at least one life has been lost. Initial thoughts are that the children of the family have been left home alone. DI Fawley and his officers Gislingham and Quinn want to know where they are and more importantly why they felt it okay to leave 2 youngsters on their own in the house.

This novel follows the author's signature style with plenty of red herrings to throw the reader off the true course of events. These twists take us on an emotional journey, feelings which are reflected in the detectives words and actions. The forensic evidence gradually mounts up and together with facts unearthed by the officers regarding the family's background, the events leading up to the night of the fire fall in to place and the full horror of what has happened is revealed.

Cara Hunter continues to impress, writing about scenarios which cannot fail to shock yet are dealt with sensitively and with clear background research. There are sufficient references in each book to link it with previous instalments yet there is plenty of content to make each book a strong standalone novel. This writer has very quickly made her way onto my personal list of top quality writers and once again I am waiting eagerly for her next book. No pressure, Cara...

This review will be posted around publication date at my blog page www.sandiesbookshelves.blogspot.co.uk