Book: The Appeal
Author: Janice Hallett
Pages: 432
Read on: Kindle
Read in: ~5.5 hours
Plot Summary:
ONE MURDER. FIFTEEN SUSPECTS.
CAN YOU UNCOVER THE TRUTH?
There is a mystery to solve in the sleepy town of Lower Lockwood. It starts with the arrival of two secretive newcomers, and ends with a tragic death. Roderick Tanner QC has assigned law students Charlotte and Femi to the case. Someone has already been sent to prison for murder, but he suspects that they are innocent. And that far darker secrets have yet to be revealed...
Throughout the amateur dramatics society's disastrous staging of All My Sons and the shady charity appeal for a little girl's medical treatment, the murderer hid in plain sight. The evidence is all there, waiting to be found. But will Charlotte and Femi solve the case? Will you?
Things I Liked:
1. I really enjoy reading about (and observing) group dynamics. How do people interact in groups? Who is the Alpha? How do the others behave vis-à-vis the Alpha? What are the said and unsaid norms within a group? How do outsiders fit into this group? So, it was such a delight to read such an interesting and interestingly structured murder mystery whose primary focus was on group dynamics of a small community's amateur theatre group!
Sam and, her husband, Kel have just returned from Central Africa after having worked with Doctors Without Borders as nurses. They find themselves in a new community and, heavily encouraged by their colleague, Isabel, join the local amateur theatre group. It is here that Sam begins to notice something suspicious about the theatre group's founder- his two-year-old granddaughter has cancer and he is raising funds to procure an experimental treatment from the US, but is tight-lipped about what this treatment is. The events stemming from this leads to a murder and it is this murder that law students, Femi and Charlotte, have to solve whilst going through emails, text message transcripts.
2. So, while the entire story is told via emails and text messages, the author still manages to do excellent context setting, world building and, even, character development. It may take you some time to get used to how this book is written and for you to get to know the cast of 15+ characters, but it is not very challenging as the same set of people are there throughout the book and the author gives us timely reminds of who is related/ connected to whom. Since the book is basically all evidence, the reader gets to play detective along with the law students reading through all this material. I formed my own theories and came very close to cracking the case.
3. Quite a few nicely done red herrings/ suspects. A very nice twist-in-the-tale. Very satisfying when a thriller/ crime fiction book is able to be unpredictable! Doesn't happen often in the genre these days and when it happens, I am always most impressed.
4. An interesting array of characters- good, bad, evil, weird, in-between all the shades of grey. You'll find yourself disliking almost everyone in the amateur drama club at some point or the other. They're all nosy, opinionated, prejudiced and very insulated, but they make for an interesting cast in a murder mystery for the very same reasons.
5. The author has sprinkled some nice breadcrumbs throughout the book and eagle-eyed readers might spot those and figure out what's what! Even if you do, I assure you, the book is still pretty great and will still surprise you!
Rating: 4.5/5
Highly recommend!
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