No Way Out - Cara Hunter

Reading Challenge Category: Re-read of series

Official Blurb:

It's one of the most disturbing cases DI Fawley has ever worked.
The Christmas holidays, and two children have just been pulled from the wreckage of their burning home in North Oxford. The toddler is dead, and his brother is soon fighting for his life.
Why were they left in the house alone? Where is their mother, and why is their father not answering his phone?
Then new evidence is discovered, and DI Fawley's worst nightmare comes true.
Because this fire wasn't an accident. It was murder.
And the killer is still out there...

My Thoughts:

Re-read review 2022:
I’m re-reading this series as I have the latest one as an ARC from NetGalley, and I wanted to immerse myself in the main characters’ lives in order to really enjoy it.
I’ve just read through my review on this from 2018, and after finishing the book again, I feel the same way. It was a slower pace than the first two. The story was still very well constructed, and I couldn’t even remember what had happened, so I sometimes felt like I was reading it afresh.
It’s certainly helping to reread the books in quick concession as I am able to continue to feel affiliated with the investigative team. I’m not forgetting all of the minutiae of their lives. It’s great as I feel more invested in the story.
Once again, I agree that this is a four-star read and another brilliant read in the series.

Original Review 2018:
Another brilliant read from Hunter, you honestly didn’t know who had lit the fire right up until the end nor who had survived or who had been killed and why!
The pace of the book was a little slower than the second book, in the DI Fawley series, and it for this reason only, I am giving it four stars rather than five. It didn’t keep me as gripped as the 2nd book did (which I literally read just before this one). So I was a little disappointed, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fantastic book, it was just compared to the 2nd it fell short a little. Maybe my expectations were TOO high; I should have taken a break in between!
It was still expertly written and has well-constructed characters. If you have read the first two books, you will want to read this one for the follow-on stories of all the detectives and their lives.
This book has flashbacks counting down the days to the fire giving you the Esmond’s side of the story so you could really see the real side of the story happening and don’t just have to rely on the police work. It also has Hunter’s signature style of no chapters, but it is broken apart by newspaper articles and e-mails.
Overall an excellent read and I’m really hoping there will be a fourth to the series!