Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring Close to Home by Cara Hunter.  Published in the U.S. in 2017, this novel is the first book in the DI Fawley crime series.  The excerpts are from a trade paperback edition borrowed from the library.

 

Beginning:  Prologue

It's getting dark, and the little girl is cold.

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I'm going to say this now, before we get started.  You won't like it, but trust me, I've done this more times than I care to punish myself remembering.  In a case like this —  a kid — nine times out of ten it's someone close to home.  Family, friend, neighbour, someone in the community.  Don't forget that.  However distraught they look, however unlikely it seems, they know who did it.  Perhaps not consciously, and perhaps not yet.  But they know.

They know.

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Page 56:  "Barry's eyes narrow.  It's as if a switch has flipped.  Or perhaps a tap turned off is the better analogy.  Because there are no tears now."

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My thoughts:  I've been on a psychological thriller reading spree of late, and I think that in this book I've found my next read to keep the streak going.

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From Goodreads:  They know who did it. Perhaps not consciously. Perhaps not yet. But they know. 

 
When eight-year-old Daisy Mason vanishes from her family’s Oxford home during a costume party, Detective Inspector Adam Fawley knows that nine times out of ten, the offender is someone close to home. And Daisy’s family is certainly strange—her mother is obsessed with keeping up appearances, while her father is cold and defensive under questioning. And then there’s Daisy’s little brother, so withdrawn and uncommunicative . . .

DI Fawley works against the clock to find any trace of the little girl, but it’s as if she disappeared into thin air—no one saw anything; no one knows anything. But everyone has an opinion, and everyone, it seems, has a secret to conceal.

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This Friday Focus post was originally written and published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing of this original post on Google+ are appreciated.