I picked up The Twyford Code as I has read and throughly enjoyed The Appeal previously. Unfortunately, The Twyford Code simply did not hold the same charm for me and failed to deliver the same experience from the epistolary format that made The Appeal shine. I will absolutely say that one of they key reasons I did not enjoy this book is completely down to personal preference and not the author’s fault at all - I did not realise the central plot would focus so heavily on World War Two and surrounding memorabilia/history. This is a topic I don’t enjoy reading about at all, and as such must say that my personal preferences definitely tampered my enjoyment of this novel, which isn’t something to hold against it if you do not share these preferences - if you do, be aware that the central mystery is heavily focused on WW2 codes and Nazi plots. This isn’t made very clear at all in the blurb, which I think is remiss as many reader will not want to read this in such depth.

I do really enjoy the epistolary format and absolutely credit Hallett for how skilfully she pulls this off - you don’t lose any narrative of the story, yet those small snippets of missing information and incomplete timelines make for a really fun experience when piecing together the puzzle to complete the story as you read. I simply felt this was better executed in Hallett’s debut, coupled with a less appealing plot line, which leads me to recommend readers to prioritise The Appeal over The Twyford Code.

If you enjoy a puzzle and an epistolary format, but don’t mind deep diving into WW2 conspiracies, then I definitely think this one is for you - there is definitely a reader that this book will be perfect for, it’s just not me.

I loved this book. Not quite as good as The Appeal, but excellent nevertheless and very intricately plotted.

A great beach reach that will keep you guessing until the last page.

Steven Smith is determined to find out what happened to his English teacher, Miss Isles, forty years ago. Before her disappearnce Steven gives his teacher a copy of a famous children's book and she beccame convinced it was the key to solving a puzzle - is this what caused her disappearence?

The layout of this book is very original - with it being written as a translation from audiofiles, therefore some words are miswritten, for example Miss Isles through the novel is referenced as "missiles". On some occassions I had to really think about what was being said and focussing on the phonics rather than the written word.

As for the storyline it was interesting but I found myself getting bored on occassions as Steve, our narrator, would get sidelined and go off on a tangent... otherwise I think this is another clever book from Hallett and would definitely read more of her work in the future.

Hallett’s previous book had its own quirky and unusual … er, appeal and this follow up also uses a distinct narrative approach in the form of transcribed audio recordings.

Steve Smith is an ex-con, who obsessed over the disappearance of his English teacher when he was just 14. His investigations lead him to the Twyford Code, hidden messages embedded in the works of a discredited children’s author.

Smith records conversations with school friends, telephone calls and his own reflections. The transcripts are riddled with errors which seem ridiculous and become increasingly annoying.

The plot takes several steps towards the bizarre and the unlikely as it reaches it climax. There is a rather prolonged coda in which all is explained to the reader and which unwittingly reveals a deep flaw in the novel’s structure.

Too twisty and obscure to provide a satisfying read. Disappointing.

Having loved The Appeal, I was excited to read Janice Hallett's second novel, The Twyford Code. Also using an unusual approach to the creation of a novel, this book is constructed with a series of audio transcripts. In the transcripts, Steve Smith, an ex-con with a complicated past, decides to solve a mystery about an incident that happened when he was a child.

The old book that is the focus of the story had Enid Blyton/Famous Five vibes, but had been potentially been used to send secret codes across Europe in wartime. Steve recalls that his teacher at school was obsessed with the Twyford Code, and as a result she takes her class on a school trip to see if they could work out the code. In trying to remember what happened, Steve also becomes obsessed with the code. The problem is that Steve is an unreliable narrator with a distorted memory of what happened on that trip.

The concept was unique, but I'm not entirely convinced that it worked for me. I enjoyed the storyline, but there was something off that I find hard to pinpoint. Would an audiobook have worked better for me? I'm just not sure. There were words that were misspelled within the transcripts, deliberately so, which added to the mystery, but the story as a whole for me was just okay.

I so wanted to enjoy this but unfortunately I couldn't finish it. I just really didn't enjoy the format and I enjoy reading as it allows me to get lost in a new world but this just made my head hurt. Such a shame

This is a very well plotted and highly original thriller. Quite a slow burn and takes a while to get going. Unfortunately not in the same league as The Appeal, which I loved die to the sheer quality of the writing. Thank you to NetGalley for the arc.

Steve Smith is just out of prison having served an 11 year sentence. While inside, he was thinking about the mystery of an unauthorised school trip he took part in when he was younger where his school teacher went missing. So, now that he is ‘free’ he sets about to investigate the mystery.

This is certainly an original mystery and one that sounds good on paper. It’s told through old phone recordings. While uncovering this mystery, Steve reconnects with old friends. I found it difficult to care about him and his relationships with others. I didn’t find myself invested in any character. I’m not sure if telling the story in this format hindered that.

I absolutely loved The Appeal and continue to recommend it to everyone and because I have read The Appeal I wasn’t surprised by the format of this book. However, as much as I wanted to like it, I just couldn’t. The story never gripped me, I found it went on for ages without anything really happening in it. Disappointed and would love to hear from others who go on to read this but sadly this one wasn’t for me.

Thank you again @netgalley for another amazing read. I won’t lie…the code confused me, I didn’t follow it but it didn’t take anything from the actual plot. I enjoyed local references to my hometown Wrexham (I should say city now) and I also enjoyed the transcript format to the book. It took me a few days to read but I would have been quicker had it not been for a few headaches along the way. A worthy follow up to The Appeal, it isn’t a sequel, just stand alone and it’s perfect and twisty.

Very very clever book. The format is predominantly in transcripts of a father's (Steven) voice recordings to his estranged son where he talks about the mystery of his missing school teacher from forty years ago. As the book goes on, we find out more about the circumstances of Steven's current life, and some of the things that have happened to him in the intervening years. We also meet his fellow school mates who were with him on the fateful day that his teacher went missing. There is more to this than meets the eye.

I found the unconventional narrative intriguing and it really suited the plot. However, it also made it a bit slow to start, and the ending was a bit too explanatory/monologue of one character. These little niggles make it not quite a full 5 stars but very close to it. I have had The Appeal on my shelves for ages and I am now very keen to pick it up as many people say it is even better.

I definitely recommend it for buddy reading as some elements were confusing and I had friends to discuss it with, and figure things out.

I was super excited to read this after enjoying The Appeal so much! I love Janice Hallett’s writing style and find it so unique and engaging.

The Twyford Code really is something very unique and I’ve never read another book like it!! At times I became a little confused and had to go back to read what I had just read to make sure I was keeping up with things. I loved the format of this book and found it easy to read, wanting to soak up the information and crack the code myself!

That being said, I didn’t find it quite as exciting as The Appeal and found the ending a bit lacklustre. I wanted another Janie Hallett book that would stay with me, but unfortunately this wasn’t the one.

Janice Hallett’s first book, The Appeal, bounced into our lives in 2021. She surely wasn’t the first person to write a book in emails & other digital new media, but this one felt fresh – it was amusing, entertaining, and contained a genuine mystery. The structure – beyond the emails - was clever, with the idea that lawyers are reviewing all the documents in the case. The pictures of village life and of the awesome amateur dramatic group were marvellous. So she took some fairly well-established tropes and turned them into something that was genuinely new, and absolutely can’t-put-it-down compelling. It was the perfect lockdown read.

Hard to follow up?

She’s certainly not trying to do the same trick again with The Twyford Code: there is one comparable item, which is that here we have transcripts of audio files, recorded on a phone, now passed on to someone for consideration. That’s explained at the beginning, and after that you’re on your own: you have to work out who is telling the story, and why, and you also have to cope with the transcription, which is far from perfect, and takes some puzzling out sometimes. This, to me, was always on the verge of being annoying (really? Every word, every time? A bit like having every header in every email in the first book)

And the story is off-the-scale weird, and very hard to describe, though extremely engaging and fascinating.

The speaker is Steven a middle-aged man from a rough background who has spent time in prison and basically messed up his life. He is obsessed with an incident from his childhood when a group of special needs kids went on a day trip with a much-loved teacher, and something strange happened. He is learning how to use technology, and reporting on his investigations in the audio files.

This is all tied up with the children’s books of one Edith Twyford, who at the very least has many features in common with the real-life Enid Blyton. Was she putting coded messages into her books?

Steven tries to track down the other people from the lost trip, and looks into the whole question of the books and what was in them. As Brad (see below) says in his review, he is ‘on a hunt for . . . what? Treasure? A national conspiracy? Perhaps his heart’s desire??’








I think I can guarantee that you are not thinking ‘well I’ve read loads of books with that setup’ – Twyford Code does make you realize how rarely you come across a book that genuinely resembles nothing and comes from nowhere.

I don’t want to write too much about the book, because one aspect I enjoyed was that when I started reading I didn’t even know as much as I have outlined above, and I loved that I hadn’t the faintest idea where it was going. (and, I can tell you, absolutely couldn’t have predicted any of it.)






So this time I am going to say: I very much enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it. If you are frustrated that I have told you almost nothing about it, then I am going to pass you on to three of my mates whose blogposts most certainly do not spoiler The Twyford Code, but have a good stab at giving a map of the action:

Jim @ Invisible Event

Kate @ Cross-Examining Crime

Brad @ Ah Sweet Mystery

The important daytrip is to Dorset, where Edith Twyford lived in the book, and the children go to the beach. Blyton did not, I think, live in Dorset, and most of her books are set in the lost domain which is Blyton-World, but the Famous Five recognizably went to Dorset for their hols. The two good photographs are, first, of Corfe Castle in Dorset – widely believed (certainly by us locals) to be the original of Kirrin Castle. Picture taken from a steam train. And secondly, Bournemouth beach. Both are by my favourite photographer, PerryPhotography - find her on Instagram at @dhellphotography

The not-so-good photo (well up to my usual standards) is a pile of Enid Blyton books in my house. I forced my own children to read them as I had enjoyed them so much myself, and Malory Towers is as likely to give us a comparison, family saying or catchphrase as Friends is.

Do you think that our childhood marks our adult life? I think this is the main question that this book tries to show us. Every little detail in our youngest years are the ones that mould us into adults, good or bad… your choice.
I’ll start saying that this is a story told like an audiobook, because this is how the story starts. A professor is asked for help about a missing man, the only clues are some audio transcripts found in his mobile… Who is him and what happened to him?
As we start reading we will discover the “Twyford Code”, a worldwide conspiracy about a children’s author; that put some clues in her books while she was alive. The story will take us to a trip in Steven Smith’s life; his past and the investigation around the mysterious code.
But of course this is a mystery inside a mystery, because not only the reader will have to discern the truth with all the clues that the author has hidden inside the book, but to discover the truth about the mysterious “Twyford Code”.
I was intrigued with this book, a mystery inside a mystery, I liked the story but didn’t like the main character, Steven, couldn’t really connect with him. Because while the investigation of the Twyford Code is addictive, the story of his past and all the family problems he had is a little boring, too much information.
Are you ready to discover “The Twyford Code”?

An unusual format in that it is written as transcripts from audio tapes by an ex-convict, who learned to read whilst in prison. It is a clever idea littered with clues, so interesting to anyone who likes to solve them BUT I found the not always consistent mis spelling really slowed down the story.
Having said that it is an interesting read for some and, considering how I enjoyed The Appeal, I would probably have another go at further books by this author.

I absolutely loved Janet Hallett’s first novel The Appeal, so this was an absolutely must read for me! Once again, there’s such an unusual and unique take on a mystery genre; the transcribed phone recordings work perfectly at creating an entertaining storytelling format, full of twists and turns, and completely captivating. As the novel before, this novel is meticulously planned and completely engrossing. A must read!

I loved The Appeal so this had a lot to live up to but I was so not disappointed.
From start to finish this was brilliant and a first class page turner wanting to know what happened next and again I loved the way it was written with transcripts and emails.
I was confused a couple of times and had to read back but this has a great storyline and again great characters. When's the next one please.

This was a book that kept me turning the page as I had to know how the mystery unwrapped. There were many parts of this where I was unsure of what was happening and where it was going but I had to keep reading as it had totally sucked me in. This was so nearly a 4 star but it really earned the final star when all was revealed and it totally blew my mind!

Interesting read, huge fan of the author. Pulled in quickly and devoured page after page. I have loved this one.

I really enjoyed reading the author’s first novel, The Appeal. I was delighted to be approved to read a copy of The Twyford Code and had high expectations.

I like the cover and find it different and eye catching. I would definitely pick it up if I saw it in a bookshop.

The Twyford code is a series of audio transcripts by a man called Steve, recently released from prison. He’s recording messages for his estranged son, recounting an event in his childhood, forty years before.
Miss Isles, the class English teacher, becomes obsessed with a book by Edith Twyford, believing there is a code within the books. She takes the class on a trip and never returns. Was her disappearance something to do with the code?
Steve is trying to find out what happened to his teacher, and trying to solve the code on the way.

I found this book to be much slower paced than The Appeal, and I struggled to connect with the characters and get into the story.

I read the book on my Kindle and found it difficult to keep track of the dates and times on the files, I’m not sure how relevant they were to the story.

It felt slow paced and I found it dragged quite a lot. The last 20% or so picked up a little but this book really fell flat for me.

The idea for the plot was something different but unfortunately I didn’t find it as engaging and interesting as I had hoped.

I will still look out for more books from this author.

2.5 stars rounded to 2.

Thanks to Viper Books and NetGalley for a copy to review.

I loved The Appeal, I've bought it for so many people as gifts and will continue to do so. I was less struck with this one. Whilst also utilising the epistolary form, the emails of The Appeal were much more accessible than the audio transcripts of this book. It took me a long while to get into the rhythms of, and the pay-off wasn't really worth the difficulty it took to get there. I didn't feel all that invested in the mystery or the character.