Although I thought this had a unique, original concept with well-rounded characters for me personally I just found hard to get into, the sequences of emails and text didn’t allow me to figure out what was going on properly and I felt it was repetitive at times.  By the time I did feel it was going somewhere I just lost interest. I skipped the end of the book.

This was very different to a normal story.  It is told through emails, text messages and crime reports.  I was initially worried that I wouldn’t be able to follow the story or connect with the character’s but I was wrong on both counts!
We find out what crime happened about three quarters through the book, so as we read from the beginning we are finding out about the characters and what sort of people they are.  By the time the crime has happened, you are left trying to find out the answer to the four questions asked so you can work it all out and find the culprit.  Of course I got it totally wrong!

I enjoyed reading this book, I liked the concept of it and hope to read more like it in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Wow it is so refreshing to have a completely fresh approach to crime fiction!

Told almost exclusively through emails this is a book that starts with a challenge. Obviously there is a crime committed to be solved but this is far from a traditional whodunnit. You hear from some characters, there is an absence of primary evidence from others. You will take your own opinions into the arena and have to reappraise these as required.

At the heart of the book is the amateur production of All My Sons and the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick's life-saving medical treatment.  The various characters circle these two important events. 
Read the emails, take note of the eminent attorney and solve the crime. Beware you need to read the lines, and between the lines.  .

I think  I'm showing my age here, but I simply didn't get on with the format of emails, and the back and forth of messages. I was utterly confused by who was who and genuinely felt through the entire book that I had no clue what was going on. Were there elements that were supposed to be funny? I didn't get those at all. I found the whole thing irritating and annoying. I would try another book by this author but not in this format.

A unique read.

The story itself is compelling & I wanted to know what happened, this is what drove me on when I found bits of it a slog. There are lots of twists & red herrings, some obvious, some well hidden. The characters are fantastically well developed, particularly when you can only see them through their conversations. This novel is written in email & text format & it took me a while to get in to the style. There is also a recap of all the information at one point which, having just read through all the details, was a bit of a drag. 

Overall an interesting story, but a bit repetitive.

Olufemi (Femi) Hassan and Charlotte Holroyd are tasked by their boss QC Roderick Tanner to sift through the correspondence of a number of people to try to prove a convicted client innocent of murder. They would then go to the Court of Appeal with evidence to overturn the conviction. Those involved are in a small community and are fundraising for cancer treatment for a young child with a brain cancer and also taking part in an am dram production. 

This is a very original way of investigating crime via messages especially emails and texts and it’s surprisingly addictive and immersive as you play Cluedo yourself. There’s an awful lot going on in this community, the complex plot is certainly busy and shines a fascinating spotlight on the social hierarchy in a locality with alphas ruling the roost and calling the shots. For the most part everyone falls into line especially when their actions are challenged by incomers. You wouldn’t think it possible for personalities to come across so crystal clear via the medium of email but they do with huge credit to the author. The broad ranging plot takes us far and wide and into a number of areas which initially seems daunting in scale. We have everything from sucking up to back stabbing, from lies to fantasising, from nefarious deeds to cover ups and it’s left to the reader to spot the many red flags those involved raise via their words. In the last quarter of the book Femi and Charlotte help us out with a review of what they’ve learned which is so useful not least because they’re are a lot of characters to get your head around!! As the truth finally peaks out from the twisty morass of correspondence, it’s an unexpected one and you realise just how far reaching the crimes are. 

Overall, this is a very clever, immersive and gripping Crime mystery. It’s well written, I like the touches of humour, the astute observations on a community and the intriguing way the cast of characters reveal themselves. It’s been so refreshing to read something presented in a different format to the norm. Highly recommended.  

With thanks to NetGalley and Serpents Tale/Profile for the arc in return for an honest review.

This was an amazing book, full of twists and turns. With a classic investigative narrative this is a classic novel and I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for escape these long winter evenings. Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced copy of this wonderful novel.

Very interesting read i like how we are reading from femi and charlottes point of view so we can make our own minds up about whats going on.

 Sometimes when there a few characters involved i get a bot lost but the way its written with the emails etc makes the characters easy to follow i was sad to hear sam died cos i liked her. 

I really enjoyed it and i really didnt see some bits coming though i had an idea on a few bits i want to read it again now i know to see if i can pick uo on the izzy/lauren and other bits i missed. 

There were a few bits where i wasnt sure who the email was from and sometimes things melded into one but as its an uncorrected proof there are going to be a few mistakes but they dont take away from the story so thats fine.

Fantastic, original, thrilling, unputdownable, enthralling, the best book I have read in months!

As an avid fan on the whodunnit this book had me gripped form the very first page. The writing style which could have been off-putting in the wrong hands ended up being a fabulous tool to get us really inside the minds of the protagonists, 

I would absolutely love to read another book by this author.

WOW

Loved the different concept of the emails 
Was hooked - twists and turns everywhere
Very cleverly written and thought out -'good characteristics  
Didn't know who it was going to be 
Great debut

Thank you netgalley, Janice Hallet and serpents tale for allowing me to read and review this book.

Wow.... absolutely hooked from the first page till the last. I love the style and concept of using emails, texts, police transcripts and newspaper reports to create a gripping and compelling story. The characters are so vivid and real I can almost see them outside walking the streets. The toxic relationship between people of lower status in the community and the higher families is really vivid and I can imagine this being the case in parts of England and America. Sadly I can also see fraud for a charity involving a sick child all too real, but wow this is a fabulous twisty and brilliant novel it has the feel of a Wilkie Collins novel (with the use of emails rather than diary or journals) I love love love this creepy, chilling and yes engrossing novel.

‘ it is best you know nothing before you read the enclosed.’ The opening of ‘The Appeal’ starts with these lines from an email written by Roderick Tanner QC. This is actually how I feel about writing a review of this book!  I almost don’t want to tell you (the reader) anything, just let you dive in and encounter it completely blind, unprejudiced, unknowing and be absolutely wowed by its originality. I want my review to tell readers just enough to convince them to take the plunge. This book is totally worthy of attention. Original, unique and surprising.  Tanner’s email is a directive to his legal staff to consider evidence which is presented in the emails/letters and correspondence which follow. This correspondence is the narrative and the reader too must piece together the story, interpret motive and build character profiles in order to understand what has happened. Through the emails the reader learns about an appeal for Poppy who is a little girl who has been diagnosed with a rare cancer, requiring expensive treatment. Her father and grandfather launch an appeal to raise money to fund the treatment. Seemingly everyone is united in this worthy cause and joins in fundraising plans including a play. The uniqueness of this book lies in its format. I found myself totally drawn into this, mentally debating with myself, looking for clues, interpreting nuances. I hope I have written enough to convince you to read this totally distracting and wonderful book! With thanks to Netgalley and Serpent’s Tail for a digital copy of this book.

What a book !! This was a totally engrossing, different and addictive read and the way it was written was so clever I just became completely immersed in it from beginning to end. 
It’s an impossible book to describe mainly because of the unique way it’s written but the brilliant thing is you are allowed to play amateur detective and all the clues are there if you are clever enough to see them (I only figured a few out !) it was a read that had me gripped to the end and I would say read it with no  preconceived ideas about what to expect and the shocks will leave you gasping it really is that good. 
Surprises, twists and characters to die for its such good fun trying to work out the perpetrator I loved the book and am sure it’s going to be a big hit in 2021 and it really does deserve to be and all credit to Janice Hallett  for a fabulously different experience in reading. 
My thanks also to NetGalley and Serpent’s Tail / Profile Books, Viper for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was immediately intrigued by the book’s blurb as it held the promise of something new and rather exciting; a story that demands its readers become active participants, rather than passive followers.  And I wasn’t disappointed.  Just as the blurb had tempted me, so too the opening pages hooked me absolutely.  

We start the book after the murder, after the court case, and after the conviction.  In fact, months have passed since it all took place, but Roderick Tanner QC is not convinced the conviction was a sound one, in spite of a full confession.  He’s poured over reams of documents and transcripts presented in the original trial, drawn a conclusion, and now he’s passing the bundle on to Olufemi (Femi) Hassan and Charlotte Holroyd to review it with ‘fresh eyes’.  

The Appeal is an extremely smart novel that tells the story of two appeals; one is a fundraising appeal, and the other is the appeal against a wrongful conviction. It boasts a large and complex cast of characters, but their roles and relationships are made easy to understand thanks to the careful cataloguing of them all by Tanner’s eternally patient assistant, Sandra, ostensibly for Femi and Charlotte’s reference - a clever touch by the author to help her reader get to grips with who’s who, whilst making it part of the book’s narrative.

What follows is a brilliant example of an epistolary novel, made up of a chain of sequential and overlapping emails, text messages, and telephone transcripts, between an eclectic group of individuals with one thing in common; the local amateur dramatics group called The Fairway Players.  The messages are mostly unguarded friend-to-friend communications, and under the fine-toothed legal comb of Femi and Charlotte, seemingly innocuous, off-the-cuff statements become rash, indiscreet, and ever so tantalisingly revealing.

Little by little we’re vicariously allowed to glimpse inside the private lives of the Players.  Simmering tensions and social hierarchies are brought to light, warts and all, revealing an almost school-yard esque competitiveness to be seen to be close to the ‘in crowd’.  With each email comes a distortion of the facts as you thought you knew them just moments before.  There are no chapters, just the sequence of emails, texts, press releases, social media updates, police interviews and so on … one after another after another …  and therein lies the book’s power to engulf you.  My desire to read ‘just one more email….’ was insatiable and I was practically tearing through the pages.

I’m unsure if this was intentional, but the performance being rehearsed by the Fairway Players is Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. It bears a striking, posthumous, similarity to the progress of the events unfolding in the character’s own lives, and is eloquently summarised by the journalist’s review of the opening night:

“Arthur Miller constructs a play the way sculptor creates a three dimensional image from an amorphous chunk of clay. He shows us a basic shape. Then bends and stretches its contours, turns it for us to view alternate angles, gradually reveals its finer details until, finally, we can see for ourselves what it really is.”

For me, this quote perfectly summarises what Janice Hallett has achieved here. I was astonished to learn this is her debut novel, and hugely enjoyed her refreshing approach to the mystery/thriller crime genre.  

The art of a twisty, slow-reveal is applied with admirable finesse, both to the storyline, and to each of the main characters themselves.  They don’t exist on the pages or in the narrative as such, but through the emails and missives they send each other.  Insecurities are laid bare and exploited, secrets new and old come out of the woodwork, and the old adage ‘the devil is in the detail’ proves itself to be oh so true.  There’s a wonderful humour throughout the book too; flippant quips between friends, fabulously inappropriate email footers, voice-to-text message faux pas, and Roderick Tanner’s faltering first steps with WhatsApp … all add up to an astutely observed character study of what it is to be human and caught unawares. I’m confident I’ve not laughed out loud so often whilst reading a legal-mystery book before.

This might be the most interesting book I've read in a while - the format was intriguing and the details of the case kept me guessing. 
It was so clever and kept me guessing as to how it was going to be resolved all the way to the end.

Law students Olufemi Hassan and Charlotte Holroyd are given paperwork with emails and messages on by Roderick Tanner QC.   He wants them to sift through it all and see if the client in prison convicted of murder actually did the crime.

The setting is in a town called Lockwood.  Martin and Helen Hayward own The Grange and also run The Fairway Players which is an amateur dramatic society.  Their son James is married to Olivia, who is expecting twins at any time.  Their daughter Paige is married to Glen and they have a 2 year old daughter called Poppy.  

There are many other characters included in the story but I don’t want to say more and give anything away!  

Who is the person convicted of murder and did they really do it?
Who did die and who did kill them?
I kept changing my mind all the way through and I was still wrong at the end!  
Really interesting characters throughout.  The clues are all in the messages and you need to work hard to see if you can figure it all out before Femi and Charlotte do.
This is a refreshingly different storyline, something to really get your teeth into.

My thanks to NetGalley and Viper Books for a copy of the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Janice Hallett's debut thriller is a hugely original and gripping novel. A small town amateur dramatics society is the focus for this novel. They raise money for a child's life saving cancer treatment, welcome two newcomers and by the end are faced with a murder. The Appeal  is written as a series of emails and the murderer lurks somewhere within those messages. Can the reader uncover the truth ?
I absolutely loved this compelling and clever thriller and raced through it in a day. The characters are brilliantly and believably portrayed as is the gossipy intrigue of a small town . Highly recommended

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC.

A complete book told through emails being read. 
This was a totally different book and did take a while to get used to the flow due to the nature of this email format. Once you do though it is addictive. I was desperate for one to be sent to the wrong recipient!, 
An amateur dramatics group, gossip behind the scenes and a very poorly little girl. The base of this book. 
A unique concept and overall a good read but not sure I will read others in this format. 
Thank you Viper books and Netgalley for this gifted copy to review

Firstly a big thank you to the publishers for my copy to review on netgalley. What a fresh fascinating original debut.

This is a new concept of storytelling and its really captivating. A clever creative piece of fiction that will have you hooked.

What has happened? Who has been telling the truth…

Thought provoking and unlike any other book you will read this year.

You think you know where its going but its not so its unpredictable.

Published 14th January

I found the framing of this mystery entertaining, as two young law students are sent a number of emails, text messages and other correspondence and asked to read through and make notes and draw conclusions. For much of the book the reader along with the students doesn't know what crime was committed, or by who. It was anyone's guess, as in classic Christie style motives and means were scattered about and numerous people were lying for their own reasons. The setting is a British village, with an amateur drama society and cancer treatment fundraising central to the plot...