#BookReview ‘The Appeal’ by Janice Hallett

About the book…

IN A TOWN FULL OF SECRETS
SOMEONE WAS MURDERED.
SOMEONE WENT TO PRISON.
AND EVERYONE’S A SUSPECT.
CAN YOU UNCOVER THE TRUTH?

Dear Reader,

Enclosed are documents relating to the events surrounding the Fairway Players’ staging of All My Sons, and the tragic death of one of its members. Another member is currently in prison for the crime. We have reason to suspect that they are innocent, and that there were far darker secrets that have yet to be revealed.

We believe that the killer has given themselves away. It’s there in writing, hidden in the emails, texts, and letters. In the events surrounding the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick, and the question of whether that money was truly being used to fund her life-saving cancer treatment. Will you accept the challenge? Can you uncover the truth? Do you dare?

The standout debut thriller of 2021 that delivers multiple brilliant twists, and will change the way you think about the modern crime novel.

My thanks to Viper books who sent me the copy of ‘The Appeal’, which is out now AND is the Waterstones paperback thriller of the month! I won it in a competition on Twitter and was so excited to dive into this book, which I would describe as the bastard offspring of ‘Ladies Of Letters’, ‘The Rutshire Chronicles’, ‘The Witness For The Prosecution’, created in Janice Hallett’s fevered imagination.

it is quite something to redefine the ‘whodunnit’ genre, another altogether to do the same to the epistolary novel simultaneously!

‘The Appeal’ works on so many levels it has literally left my head spinning whilst I want to applaud the ingenuity of the plot, the characterisations, the intricate relationships between each person involved in the murder of an unknown individual, whose identity is not revealed until well over the halfway point.

From the title itself, which can refer to the appeal made by Roderick Tanner to his junior colleagues to see if they come to the same conclusions as him, the appeal against a possibly erroneous incarceration, or, the appeal to raise vital funds for 2 year old Poppy’s fight against brain cancer, all of this cumulates in a delicious ball of appellation to the reader to get involved themselves.

Written in the form of transcribed, chronological text messages, emails, Whatsapp (or, Whats Up as it is referred to several times, quite accurately I think!) this represents a timeline in a murder case. You are unaware of anything regarding Femi and Charlotte, the two individuals tasked with going through the evidence with fresh eyes.

You are not told who is murdered.

You are not told who has been imprisoned for the murder.

You are not told who is in the frame, the reasons why, and if the appeal is coming from the defence or prosecution side of the case.

And so, it begins…

What looks like, to the untrained eye, to be a spate of fairly incongruous communications between a village with a strict hierarchical order organising their am-dram production of Arthur Miller’s ‘All My Sons’, descends into allegations of fraud, embezzlement, character assassination and the pursuit of the truth. The further you read, the more your mind starts creating pictures of the kind of people these villagers are, there are some truly hilarious moments (I am thinking of the Yogathon in particular) which balance out the truly despicable notion that someone is trying to undermine a charity fundraiser for a sick 2 year old girl.

The girl in question, Poppy, is the daughter of the owners of ‘The Grange;, basically the all but landed gentry seat of the village where there are several dynastic cross overs. On one hand are the Reswicks, Poppy’s family the Haywards, and on the other, the MacDonalds and the Dearings.

The Fairway Players, the local drama group, fresh from their success with ‘Blithe Spirit’, decide that ‘All My Sons’  will be a charity fundraiser for the ‘A Cure For Poppy’ appeal. However, a recently returned nurse from Africa, has concerns around the experimental treatment that is being proposed for Poppy.

This nurse, Sam and her husband Kel, are brought into the Fairway Players by Issy, a fellow nurse in the ‘Jelly Antics’ (geriatrics) ward of the local hospital. From Issy’s emails, it appears she and Sam have made firm friends and that Issy is a lonely woman who clings to Sam and feels she stands taller when she is around.

What is so interesting is that Sam is one of a small number of characters whose ‘voices’ are not heard directly-your impression of them is formed by reading the way she is perceived by the members of the community.

As you, Femi and Charlotte dig deeper, will you work out who the victim is before they are revealed?

Is it one of the wealthy owners of The Grange who may harbour dark secrets behind their grand facade? Could it be neurotic Issy who has found out something she shouldn’t have? Is it Sam, or Kel, who have not been clear about their reasons for leaving Africa? Or is it the dr who is pioneering the fund raising drive and this U.S based experimental drug?

I worked out who was the victim, who was incarcerated,was on the right(ish) track for the killer (or killers, I’m not saying!) but the ending came as a pretty big shocker, in spite of all that.

A wonderfully engaging read which I found next to impossible to stop once I had started, I recommend this novel unreservedly!

About the author…

Janice Hallett is a former magazine editor, award-winning journalist and government communications writer. She wrote articles and speeches for, among others, the Cabinet Office, Home Office and Department for International Development. Her enthusiasm for travel has taken her around the world several times, from Madagascar to the Galapagos, Guatemala to Zimbabwe, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

A playwright and screenwriter, she penned the feminist Shakespearean stage comedy NetherBard and co-wrote the feature film ‘Retreat’ a psychological thriller starring Cillian Murphy, Thandie Newton and Jamie Bell.

The Appeal is her first novel.

Twitter @JaniceHallett @ViperBooks