DEBUT novelist Cara Hunter is living the dream after a publishers’ bidding war for her crime stories.

Penguin is publishing three novels by Ms Hunter following a hotly contested auction.

Close to Home, set in Oxford and featuring DI Adam Fawley, is already a bestseller and a second thriller, In the Dark, is due out in July.

Oxford University graduate Ms Hunter, who lives in North Oxford, said she was delighted with the reaction so far to her debut novel, a mystery focusing on the disappearance of an eight-year-old girl called Daisy Mason at a party.

Ms Hunter, who is married and used to work in finance and public relations in London, said: “I decided to set the story in Oxford because it’s easier to write about somewhere you know.

“It’s a relatively small place with lots of communities overlapping in interesting ways.”

The author said she was a fan of Colin Dexter’s Morse novels as he was so good at seeing connections between town and gown.

She added: “I would aspire to be good at that too.

“Oxford is a very stimulating place with the energy of a university city and a very strong sense of itself.”

The novelist has paid deliberate homage to Mr Dexter’s TV detective hero Inspector Morse.

She added: “One of the police officers in Close to Home is called Erica Somer and of course her surname is an anagram of Morse.

“Characters can take on a life of their own when you are writing and she is one of the strong characters who I found I was writing about more and more.”

Close to Home is out now, published by Penguin at £7.99.