Very appealing

This was fun.

A book I’d never heard of by an author I’d never heard of until my friend Jane gave it a thumbs up in an online book group to which we belong.

She described it so well I’m just going to quote her: “Just finished The Appeal by Janice Hallett. I wasn’t sure how I’d like it – it’s an epistolary novel, a mystery written entirely in emails, texts, and WhatsApp messages, which I thought could be annoying, but in fact it was riveting. The many suspects are members of a small town amateur dramatics group, so you might enjoy that… Anyway, it’s very well done, and as I say, absolutely riveting.”

She’s right. It is riveting. So much so that Saturday night I got so caught up I was still reading at 3:30 in the morning. 

The setting is a small English town (from the sound of it more likely a village – although there is a hospital, so perhaps not) and the local theatre group does dominate the lives of most of the characters. There were a few odd (to me) theatrical terms used that made me wonder if the author was actually a Yank setting a novel in England, but no, Hallett is definitely a Brit. Do thesps in the UK refer to “words” rather than “lines”? Perhaps they do. Will have to check in with Annie, my old actress friend from my Finchley Road days, to find out.

Sidebar here from the Department of Isn’t It a Small World: A while ago my mate Donna was directing a one-act play by a Canadian playwright, Elliott Hayes (killed tragically young in a hit and run). When I posted something about the play on Facebook, there was a comment from Annie. Turns out she’d shared a flat with him when they were both studying theatre in Bristol. Small world, indeed.

Anyway… You don’t find out who the victim is until well into the novel (although I had my suspicions as future readers probably also will) and the person I had pegged as a killer from very early on has, by the time the “epistles” catch up to the present, been convicted. But is this person the real killer? 

Ah ha! You’ll have to read it to find out. And I very much recommend that you do.