Title: The Appeal
Author: Janice Hallett
Year: 2021
Genre: Crime/Thriller
The Appeal is an epistolary murder mystery centered around an amateur dramatics troupe performing a play fundraising for a little girls cancer treatment when a member is found dead. The book was selected for my book club read and I had no prior knowledge, though I did select it as a shorter read following The Pillars Of The Earth which was our previous book club read.
The book begins with setting the scene, a murder has taken place in the small village of Lockwood, centered around The Fairway Players who are an amateur dramatics group in the village, who were staging All My Sons to raise money for Poppy Reswick’s life-saving cancer treatment.
Someone has already been convicted of the murder but Roderick Tanner QC believes they are innocent, he entrusts too trainees, Charlotte and Femi with all of the evidence that the court was given, as well as us and he believes much darker secrets will be revealed. Will they be able to catch the killer? Will you?
Overall I really loved the creative nature that this story is presented to the reader with the epistolary writing style being used to great effect. If I’m completely honest I have never seen a murder mystery novel written in this way and I really enjoyed it as you feel like you are there, with Charlotte and Femi, analysing the evidence.
The first half of the book, Hallett even refrains from telling us who was murdered, with it instead compromising mostly of emails back and forth, text messages and the occassional notebook or police interview that paints a picture of events leading up to the crime. It is only as the emails reach the point that the murder happens we get told which character is found dead.
The second half then slowly reviews and unpacks the emails which revelas quite a few surprising details and twists which did surprise me and whilst I did work out parts of what was going on in the emails, there were other things that really did pass me by.
I have read a couple of other reviews of this book and I do have to agree the format does present some challenges.
The book has quite a few characters involved in the story with emails firing back and forth from them it can be very hard to remember who is connected to who and although the book does have a list near the start of the Fairway Players I did find myself going back to it frequently to check on who is who which can be frustrating. Also though quite a lot of the story is in what’s not said in the emails, as is revealed in the second half, it can be hard to give a picture of the characters and who to root for in the story.
That isn’t to say that Hallett doesnt have a good go and there are elements in the emails that signify who each character is, Isabel’s nicey-nicey tone in her emails mask a much darker character, whilst some of the emails from characters such as Joyce did have me laughing in places as she has a very witty, busybody attitude which comes across in the emails.
I would also say the first half does require quite a lot of patience to get through before the reveals start to come which I can imagine some readers would lost interest before it gets to this point. However I would recommend that readers try to stick to it and they will find that the book definitely plays a few tricks on the reader so I would recommend giving this a try. If you have ever read this book, let me know what you thought and if you had any theories over who the murder victim and killer was in the comments down below.
