Good Evening Everyone,

It’s Tuesday evening and I feel like it should be Thursday already. This week seems to be going so slow and the past weekend feels like a lifetime ago. I don’t seem to have much get up and go this week and I’m finding myself procrastinating over things. I need to snap out of it and get stuff done. I have a quieter work day tomorrow so I’m hoping I can give myself the kick up the backside that I need.

Book 📖

I’ve gone a little bit DI Fawley crazy this last couple of weeks and binged on three books from the series (check out my DI Fawley Series category for the other reviews). In the Dark is the second book in the series by @CaraHunterBooks; for which I mixed it up a little and listened to the audiobook.

Description 🔖

A young woman and a small child are found in the basement of a local elderly man’s house in Oxford and they aren’t in good shape. The woman isn’t able to speak, the child is distressed and the police are unable to identify either of them. The elderly man who owns the house claims that he has never seen either of them before and had no idea they were in his house.

DI Fawley’s team don’t have an awful lot to go on at the start of the investigation, but there are always clues to be found and leads to follow up on. With lots of red herrings and more than one suspect, will the police team be able to crack this case and get it right?

General Thoughts 🤔

DI Adam Fawley and the team had yet another totally bizarre and complex case to tackle and once again, I loved reading about it. You’d think that I’d be accustomed to the Oxford CID team by now, but it would seem that I just can’t get enough of them. I never know where an investigation is going to lead to, but what I do know (and certainly experienced with this book) is it’s likely to be somewhere that I would never have guessed.

The case in this second book appeared to be quite clear at one point, but then seeds of doubt were planted in my mind and what I thought was a solved case, turned out to be something completely different. Personally, I think that this book had the most out there story line out of the ones I have read to date. I had to pause and try and piece it all together as it started to unravel as there was a small voice in my mind saying “surely not!”.

Characters 👫👬👭

My previous reviews have given my thoughts on the team in general and I don’t think I’ve ever talked specifically about many of the characters. So I’d like to do a bit of a quick fire summary of a handful of the team.

Gislingham; I love him. I loved the loyalty he showed towards his team (even though I don’t think he particularly liked them all).

Quinn; he has his strengths and does add to the team, but my goodness does he drive me crazy.

Somer; I’m slightly disappointed in her decisions regarding Quinn (no judgement though, we’ve all been there), but I love her dedication to her job.

Writing Style ✍️

I went for something different for this book and listened to the audiobook. I had a little bit of doubt about how narrating the social media posts etc would turn out but it was brilliant. The narration brought it to life even more than reading it in my own monotone voice in my head.

Cara Hunter went dark with this storyline and took it to a new level. The crime and all of the mystery surrounding it was intelligently thought out and we as readers are so fortunate to be on the receiving end of all of that intelligence.

Conclusion & Scoring 🏅

Another fantastic read within this series and I’m so happy I decided to listen to it narrated. I’ve said it in a previous review but I am proving that these books can be read standalone by reading them out of sync. I have binged #5, #1 and #2 in a short space of time, so I’m going to take a very small break before completing the set with #3. I’m not sure how long that break will last, but watch this space as I’m sure my review will be posted soon.

😍😍😍😍😍