Series: DI Adam Fawley #7
Release date: 13th February 2025
Publisher: Hemlock Press
Pages: 359
Find it: Goodreads Waterstones
Source: I received an E-ARC via Netgalley and I bought a hardback from my local bookshop
Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Synopsis

When Nick Vincent, producer of true-crime show Infamous, hears about an explosive new angle on a high-profile case—the 2016 murder of an eight-year-old girl in Oxford—he leaps at the chance to send a researcher to verify the claims.

Two months later, a dog walker discovers a woman’s body, bound and buried in a shallow grave in the woods. Forensic evidence links the corpse to the disappearance of that same child.

DCI Adam Fawley, the original investigating officer, is called in to run the enquiry. And he remembers the case well—he arrested the child’s mother for murder. A murder he now knows she didn’t commit.

The investigation raises more questions than answers. What connects the two crimes? Where has the dead girl been all these years? How did she manage to disappear? For Adam Fawley, this is personal…

Review

Cara Hunter is back with a new installment in the DI Fawley series. When a body is found in the woods, forensic evidence links it to one of Fawley’s old cases. He got the culprit – a woman convicted of the murder of her daughter, and now it looks like she might have been innocent. Will Fawley be able to uncover the mystery behind his old case, as well as discover who killed the person in the woods?

I am not a police procedurals reader in the slightest, but there is something about Cara Hunter’s books that are so addictive, so completely unputdownable, that I snatch them up as soon as they are released. Making a Killing was absolutely no exception, it was gripping, utterly compelling and full of twists and turns. Of course, the ending was one I did not see coming and I loved every minute of the story.

One of the things I always really enjoy about this series is the way Hunter includes different media, such as newspaper clippings and interview records. It always makes the story feel more realistic. I enjoyed that we get to see Fawley and the team after a jump in time, seeing how their careers and home lives have changed. I also loved the way Hunter connected the story to her standalone novel Murder in the Family, I thought this was such a clever touch and hope we are going to see more of the Infamous series in the future.

This was such a terrific read and I ended up reading the second half of the book in a single sitting. If you’re looking for a crime series with brilliant characters with each installment keeping you completely hooked, you definitely need to pick up the DI Adam Fawley series. A thoroughly entertaining tale, I cannot wait to see what case Fawley takes on next.