Famous crime writer Cara Hunter is on a roll. Her new book Hope To Die, part of the best-selling Adam Fawley series, was published on Thursday, she has just signed a new four book deal with Harper Collins and TV companies are currently making a pilot of In The Dark for a new TV series.
As if that wasn’t enough, Cara has now written her first stand alone novel Murder In The Family, due to be published in April.
“Harper Collins made me an offer i couldn’t refuse”
With 1.3 copies of her previous novels Close To Home, In The Dark, No Way Out, All The Rage and The Whole Truth sold in the UK alone, and a readership in 27 countries worldwide, the appetite for Cara Hunter’s page-turning detective novels shows no sign of abating. READ ABOUT HER HERE
So was it hard to veer away from Adam Fawley and his Oxford team to start on something completely new?
“The trick is to always give the readers what they want, to keep the bar high, to keep it fresh, so that every book is your best, which is why I’m doing a stand alone, because you kneed to know when to pause,” she says.
“I’m thinking of it as a palate cleanser. I don’t see it as a risk but more of an opportunity to bring in new readers because DI Adam Fawley will be back, and I love a challenge, she says”
“the tv series would be the icing on an already huge birthday cake but it’s out of my hands”
So what is her standalone Murder In The Family about? “It’s based around a true crime show format, where experts are gathered to try to revisit an unsolved crime in London like police, psychologists and lawyers, put together to reinvestigate the case from scratch and interview all the witnesses again…..except one of them is the murderer.
“So it’s been fun and incredibly immersive. It’s like an Agatha Christie style murder-mystery set in the modern day,” Cara explains.
As for Hope To Die, out now in paperback, and set in Wytham, it features a burglary gone wrong which becomes intrinsically linked to a historical child murder case.
A brilliant page turner, and in our humble opinion her best yet, it’s easy to see why Harper Collins offered Cara a four book deal (two Adam Fawleys and two standalones): “They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” she smiles.
“The trick is to always give the readers what they want, to keep the bar high, to keep it fresh, so that every book is your best”
The TV project is also ongoing, the screenplay written by Daisy Coulam of Grantchester fame and currently being made into a pilot. If approved, a full TV series could follow.
“I hope Oxford will be getting a new TV crime series,” she laughs, “which is really exciting but we will have to see. It would be the icing on an already huge birthday cake but it’s out of my hands.
“I am positive though because Fawley is already a great police ensemble piece, rather than one guy solving a crime, which TV audiences seem to like, and I grinned when I read the script. It’s brilliant.”
Considering Cara was a copywriter writing books on the side a few years ago, her rise has been meteoric.
“I thought my first book would be a flash in the pan. I just didn’t think about writing crime novels as a full-time job back then. If you’d told me I’d be here talking to you about all this I wouldn’t have believed you,” she says, before heading home to work on the second draft of Murder In The Family. We can’t wait.
Hope To Die by Cara Hunter is published by Harper Collins, priced £8.99 and available in all good bookshops.
