CARA Hunter is a big name in the world of detective fiction which in her case might more aptly be called the genre of the crime thriller. And goodness how she thrills!

Her debut novel Close to Home, published at the end of last year, was picked for the Richard and Judy Book Club, sold 300,000 copies and became a Kindle No 1. Its focus was on a missing child.

In the Dark, its successor, again starring the Oxford detective Adam Fawley, is just in the bookshops (Penguin, £7.99) and certain to be another huge hit.

It’s a two-mysteries-for-one tale, blending an account of long-term imprisonment, somewhat in the Josef Fritzl style, with a murder involving the same North Oxford property

Coming in January is the DI Fawley thriller No 3, No Way Out, about two children pulled from the ruins of a blazing house, North Oxford again.

And, lest interest in Fawley should show any sign of flagging, Cara has already finished book four and has her thinking cap on concerning the plot of the fifth.

This will fulfil her present contract with Penguin, who signed her against fierce competition from other publishers.

This, she tells me, is every author’s dream. Indeed her whole recent experience has been “a roller-coaster ride, something that changes your life”.

“It reminds me of the lyrics of that Talking Heads song [Once in a Lifetime]: ‘And you may ask yourself, Well how did I get here?’”

There is, as it happens, an answer to that question, which she supplies when we meet for coffee in the garden of Branca, in Walton Street.

That this restaurant is in the vicinity of her home and close to the setting for her fiction – some roads disguised, others not – I already know.

In the brief biography that prefaces In the Dark we are told: “Cara Hunter is a writer who lives in Oxford in a street not unlike those featured in her crime books.”

And that’s it. Why so economical over personal detail? I wondered. Indeed, this is the first thing I ask her about.

“I think it’s nice to let the books speak for themselves,” she says.

Cara, in fact, was brought up in London, but developed her love of Oxford during three years in the mid-1980s reading English at Lincoln College.

That she remains of a literary bent is evident in the high quality of her prose. ‘Fawley’ shows it too, the name borrowed from the main character in Thomas Hardy’s Oxford-set Jude the Obscure.

Married for 25 years to solicitor Simon, she worked in business and as a copywriter before embarking on a full-time writing career after a move to Oxford from rural Berkshire in pursuit of culture.

This is certainly being found. She was at Garsington Opera’s Falstaff the night before we talk and at the RSC’s Macbeth later in the day.

It was Simon who prompted her new career and towards that Talking Heads moment when, lazing on a Caribbean beach with a pile of detective stories, she repeatedly complained of their dud endings.

“Why not write one with a better ending yourself?” Simon suggested. So she did.

She was naturally conscious – as who could not be? – of Oxford’s status as a murder capital and the long shadow cast by Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse.

The subject is wittily alluded to, indeed, in Close to Home, where Fawley states bluntly as he introduces himself: “The car is a Ford and I don’t do bloody crosswords either.”

Her first impulse was to change Oxford’s name. It became Kingstead in her first draft. “This is Oxford, isn’t it?” said her editor. Oxford it became.

Cara writes affectionately of the city in her acknowledgements to In the Dark, in which are named the various professionals who help her to ‘get things right’.

Her sense of place is sharp. “You must have a child at Phil and Jim [the North Oxford primary school],” she was told. She hadn’t, has had no child at any school.

Her description? “How is it that all schools smell the same? A fruity little blend of sweaty sock, farts and chip fat, layered with ripe undertones of sick and disinfectant.”

Read and enjoy.

WITH its unerring gift for getting things ever-so-slightly – OK, sometimes massively – wrong, the Daily Mail last week repeatedly referred to the lately deceased Lord Carrington, 99, as ‘Peter Carington’.

This was to rub in, as it were, that soon-to-go editor Paul Dacre and his minions were alive to the fact that the peer’s family name differed from the one attached to the peerage.

Strangely, if the Mail’s Peter Oborne is to be believed, the family version was originally with two ‘r’s and amended in the late 19th century by the second Lord C. The Times tells it differently, though.

In his generous tribute to the former Foreign Secretary (and much else besides) Oborne called him ‘Peter Carington’ in words one and two and a number of times thereafter.

This is wrong. When talking or writing about someone with a title, and wishing to use his or her Christian name, it is usual to append it to the title and not the family name.

Thus one would speak/write, say, of Patrick Lichfield rather than Patrick Anson, of Irene Ravensdale rather than Irene Curzon, of Jamie Marlborough rather than Jamie Spencer-Churchill.

Peter Carrington, as his obituaries made clear, was a gent of the old school, as shown in his principled resignation over the Falklands.

One of his interests was opera and he served into very old age as a member of the advisory council helping to guide Garsington Opera ever upwards. He was a familiar sight on opening nights, unfailingly courteous to those around him.

The Times diarist told an amusing story concerning his interest in word games. During the Lancaster House conference on Rhodesia, he was playing about with the delegates’ names and found that Mugabe backwards spelt ‘E ba gum’. Odd eh?

I OBSERVED the spectacular sunset on Sunday night from a boat stationary in the River Thames near Binsey, the sinking orange orb reflected in the still waters.

The stunning view was shared by many revellers, youngsters predominantly, who had been enjoying the glorious weather out on Port Meadow.

The wonderful long period of heat – and I write some days before it might have ceased – has assisted in showing us an Oxford almost unparalleled in its beauty.

Before the kicking-in of 80F-plus temperatures – I still cling, to the ‘old money’ terms – I had been in Italy, Spain and France (twice), and none, for all their charms, quite matched Britain at its best.

More than once I have pointed out to mates – as they yawn at my banality – that to be resident in Oxford, and idle, is to be on a permanent holiday.

Why skeddaddle elsewhere when the joys of a pedal past Port Meadow, a pint in the Punter pub and a plunge in the pool at Hinksey (and these are only the ‘p’s) are ready and waiting on the doorstep?

I cycle most days beside the Thames and the Oxford Canal, in winter as well as summer, and never fail to be impressed by the courtesy of those I encounter, with occasional exceptions, usually hikers wielding those absurd ski-poles, demanding to know why I’m not ringing my bell. (It’s rude.)

Gates are opened, the path made clear for me some times. At others, I open or pull to the side. “Thank you, sir,” say youngsters – for this is a city where good manners prevail, from foreign visitors especially.

Hundreds of them have gathered around the Medley bridges, together with obvious locals, during the period of the heatwave, bathing, barbecuing and basking in the sunshine.

Each day following, on early rides, I have seen no sign of their detritus – the bottles, burger boxes and the like. Are the youngsters cleaning up after themselves, or are other Wombles at work?