Having very much enjoyed The Appeal, I was really looking forward to reading The Twyford Code. Once again, the book is written in an unusual format, this time in the style of audio transcripts. After a few transcripts, I quickly found I got into the flow of the language and indeed, the plot. I found this book easier to follow, in that I had to keep referring back to the the cast list in The Appeal, whereas this one flowed easily.
Steve Smith, a recently released convict, tells the story of his search for the truth behind what happened many years ago to his missing teacher, Miss Isles. Interwoven with this is the story of his life from childhood to the present and why he ended up in prison. I found myself really relating to Steve and becoming invested in solving the code and the mystery. Lots of twists and turns kept me eager to keep reading. I’d highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good mystery.
Many thanks to NetGalley UK and the publisher for the e-arc in exchange for a review.

This book turned my brain inside out in the best possible way. It's completely unique and genre-defying, with so many clever puzzled interweaved through a gripping, heart-warming story. If, like me, you've spent most of your adult life looking for the grown-up version of The Famous Five, then The Twyford Code is what you've been searching for, but even better than you could have imagined!

Thanks to NetGalley, Viper books and Janice Hallett for the ARC of The Twyford Code

I was a big fan of The Appeal - particularly for its unique writing style and format, so I was really excited to see what The Twyford Code had in store.

This book is equally unique in its delivery - this time, the vast majority of the story is told via transcriptions of audio recordings, As you might expect, this authentically comes with some qwerky writing - e.g. Bournemouth becomes Born Mouth, Miss Isles becomes missiles and swear words are blotted out. It's not the easiest to read on a kindle, so I personally would opt for a physical format of this kind of book.

This time the story centres around Steve Smith, who when he was a child, found a book on a bus by disgraced author Edith Twyford. When he shows it to his teacher Miss Isles, she seems excited and tells him that the book is the key to a secret code. She takes the class on an unofficial school trip to try and track down clues, but she goes missing and is never seen again.

Forty years on and after a long spell in prison, Steve is determined to find out what happened to his teacher Miss Isles. Was she on to something? Was she deluded or did the book really hide a code? Was she murdered or is she still alive? As he sets off on his mission, Steve leaves voice recordings on his son's phone to track his thoughts and feelings and as it progresses, we learn there is far more to these books than meets the eye!

The amount of effort from the author that must have gone into this text is HUGE, as the plot comes together so well at the end. At times it did feel a little information overload, with complex acrostics and clue unravelling but the storyline is very clever - like no other text I've read before.

Another creative, clever and unique text from a super talented writer.

After exposing the machinations within an amateur dramatics group in her bestselling debut novel The Appeal, Janice Hallett turns her attention to the sinister side of classic children’s literature in The Twyford Code. While Hallett revamped the epistolary novel format with The Appeal by telling the story entirely through texts, emails and other documents, she has innovated further with The Twyford Code and written a compelling mystery with a tone strangely reminiscent of Golden Age crime novels principally using transcriptions of 200 audio files recorded on an old iPhone by ex-con Steven Smith.

Around 40 years ago, Steven found a copy of Six on Goldtop Hill by Edith Twyford on a London bus and, hoping to be able to sell it for money to buy a chippie tea, took it to school with him. Not exactly a natural scholar, the only class that Steven quite liked was remedial English, which was taught by the unusually charismatic Miss Isles – or ‘missiles’ as the transcription software maintains. According to Miss Isles, Twyford’s books had been banned due to being “nasty, sadistic, moral little tales full of pompous superiority at best and blatant racism at worst”. As Steven was unable to read the book himself, he had to take Miss Isles’ word for it when she claimed there was a note inside saying “Deliver to Alice Isles” and confiscated it.

Nevertheless, due to the interest that Steven and the other four students in her remedial English class showed in studying a banned book, Miss Isles dedicated some lesson time to reading passages from Six on Goldtop Hill, and here Hallett delivers some delightfully funny pastiches of the most sexist aspects of Enid Blyton’s oeuvre. It turned out that Miss Isles was actually quite the expert on Twyford, particularly the conspiracy theory that alleged the writer had used her books to send secret coded messages to the enemy during World War II.

Whether due to her own interest in cracking the so-called Twyford code or in an attempt to enhance her students’ learning experience, Miss Isles took the five of them on an unauthorised field trip to Bournemouth to visit the cottage that Twyford had lived in during the war. As the early audio recordings make clear, Steven remembers going on the trip and he remembers arriving home very late at night, but he can’t remember what actually happened throughout the day. The only thing he’s sure of is that he never saw Miss Isles again.

In the present day, having recently been released following a long stretch in prison, as Steven records messages to his probation officer Maxine, he explains about the mysterious disappearance of Miss Isles and muses about his missing memories while also explaining his current situation. He dropped out of school following the fateful field trip and fell in with the powerful Harrison family, which started him on the path to a life of crime. Determined to avoid going back to prison and hoping to reconnect with his son, Steven informs Maxine that he has decided to investigate Miss Isles’ disappearance and discover whether there is any truth to the story of the Twyford code.

From this point on, Steven records the progress of his investigation, interviewing those he thinks can help him and attempting to draw conclusions based on what he learns. As his transcription software is not very reliable, there are a number of repeated malapropisms (or are they?) and it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish who is speaking. When combined with Steven’s own confusion and patchy recollections, such glitches in the transcripts lend the story a rather disordered tone, which reflects well both the unlikely nature of the central conspiracy theory and the high likelihood of unreliable narration due to the passage of years and the difficulty of confronting troubling memories.

This storytelling device also allows Janice Hallett to explore how different people, particularly Steven, Nathan, Donna, Shell and Paul from Miss Isles’ class, remember the same events differently, and what that might mean in terms of Steven actually getting to the truth. Despite (or, perhaps, because of) his troubled background and criminal history, Steven is a great and big-hearted character. His musings are insightful, sometimes heartrending and often amusing, especially his interpretations of the activities of the Super Six, Edith Twyford’s main characters.

Having learned to read while in prison, Steven is finally able to tackle Twyford’s books for himself and can examine Miss Isles’ claims about a secret code spread across their pages, while also investigating her disappearance. Hallett’s use of codes and puzzles throughout The Twyford Code is enthralling. The tight plotting allows for the central Twyford code to shift and develop as Steven’s investigation progresses and he learns more about both Twyford and Miss Isles. He’s assisted in unravelling the various threads of the main puzzle by young librarian Lucy, who provides helpful exposition and contributes knowledge concerning art and literature that proves necessary to move things along. The relationship between Steven and Lucy has a nice dynamic and helps to highlight both his softer side and his intelligence.

The Twyford Code is a fiendishly clever puzzle mystery packed with plenty of twists and turns and probably more than its fair share of red herrings. Miss Isles’ disappearance is a perplexing affair, while the idea of Edith Twyford passing coded messages to the Nazis via twee children’s books is a bonkers yet engaging concept. As a whole, the story offers an engrossing and challenging conundrum for you to puzzle out.

What a brilliant new book by Janice Hallett! I absolutely loved The Appeal and was chuffed to receive her new book for review. The Twyford Code lived up to my expectations.

When Steven Smith finds a children’s book on the bus to school, he brings it with him to his Remedial English class- he is dyslexic. When his teacher, Miss Isles, finds him flicking through it she tells him and the rest of the class the book, by disgraced writer Edith Twyford, is banned- but proceeds to read from to book to her students anyway. It leaves Steven intrigued by the banning of the book and it's story, especially since his teacher won't give it back to him.

Fast forward to the present day, Steven has been released from prison where he learned how to read. Reconnecting with the book, he is more than ready to find out what happened during a school trip with his Remedial English class and Miss Isles back in the day.

The book is made up of transcripts of voice notes Steven records. At the beginning of the book there is an explanation to a Professor Mansfield on how some words are transcribed incorrectly, which helped me as well when I started reading, but you will get used to after a while.

A brilliant book, with like in The Appeal, many plot twists and turns, unravelling the mystery of the Twyford Code and Miss Isles' disappearance.

Thank you NetGalley and Viper Books, for my eARC in exchange for my honest unedited review.

This novel was very much NOT the cosy detective story I expected, it is far better than that - I can only say that I was held hostage by its unique narrative from the start to the very finish.

Part literary puzzle, part old style crime caper - I’ve actually never read anything like it to be honest, and I would recommend readers to suspend all expectations and just go with the flow - you certainly will not regret it.

Amazing - loved it.

Many thanks to all concerned for letting me read and review this terrific book.

Absolutely brilliant! Told through transcribed audio files, it takes you on an incredible journey, slowly revealing clues as it builds to a genius ending. I didn’t know how Janice could top the Appeal but she has smashed it!

Famous Five and Buried Treasure ★★★☆☆

When Steven Smith gets out of prison, he decides to solve the disappearance of his teacher Miss Isles. As he digs into what happened that day in 1983 he also finds a mysterious code which is somehow linked to everything. As he faces his past and investigates the mystery of The Twyford Code, Steve records everything on his son’s iPhone.

The “audio file” narrative is difficult to read, especially due to the words which are misinterpreted by the software, the redacted expletives, missing words and background noise amongst other elements.

The plot itself is interesting although the clues and the acrostics in the books are not something the reader could connect and unravel without the characters’ explanations and piecing together of the story.

The ending reveals the true nature of the story and the reason for the difficult “audio file” narrative. However it also feels overcomplicated and in some ways undermines the bulk of the story.

A clever and inventive concept which is ultimately more about creating codes than the reader’s experience.

A very unusual mystery. As with The Appeal, the documentary approach with the transcripts makes for easy and compelling reading in nice bitesized chunks. The plot is continually surprising, constantly pulling the rug out from underneath the reader with new directions and newly revealed information. A highly enjoyable read.

Having read and loved The Appeal I was delighted to receive a copy of The Twyford Code. Alas, I found this book a struggle. It is written in the format of audio files recorded on an old smart phone which I found very confusing. The plot itself is very clever and I’m sure many people will love it, but for me it was too much hard work. So if you can get past the writing style, and enjoy a good plot with plenty of red herrings then this will be a great read. For me it’s a three star ⭐️ Thanks to #NetGalley for my ARC of this book.

I previously read highlights first book and enjoyed it enormously – the Appeal. In some ways I thought the second book couldn’t possibly live up to that in terms of originality and engagement with the reader. I was so wrong because this is an equally outstanding piece of fiction. The narration almost completely via audio recordings, just works wonderfully and kept me enthralled. I loved the narrator - unreliable though he undoubtedly was. The actual plot was unexpected intriguing and kept you coming back to question the ideas you’d already formed as a reader. I would most strongly recommend this book to those who enjoy innovative writing and an excellent mystery. It is so good that I will be looking out with enthusiasm for Hallett’s next book.

More a magic eye puzzle than a crossword, this book pulled me in so deeply I didn't think I'd ever emerge, and then suddenly, everything became beautifully clear. Ingenious and utterly original, very enjoyable

The book consists of computerised transcriptions of audio files. It's really very clever, particularly how some of the words have been miss transcribed.

A secret hidden within a children's book, published just before world war two. A copy of which finds its way into the hands of schoolboy Steven. I so warmed to this main character, hmm I want to say so much more about him but can't as I don't want to give any spoilers.

This story has Nazis, code breakers, iPhones, school teachers, poverty, prison, and criminal gangs. It's so clever how Janice Hallett brings all these things together, creating a cohesive and immersive storyline.

Yes, the code-breaking element of it was beyond me. But honestly, there is no need to be a codebreaker to follow and understand the book. Yes don't worry, you do get to understand the code it's all explained at the end.
I did particularly enjoy the fact that elements of the book are set in Shropshire! In fact, you will virtually drive past my house 😃

I read and really loved The Appeal in September, I gave it 4 stars. But I think The Twyford Code is even better, it's also very different...4.5 out of 5 stars from me!

Although I read the book I didn't listen to the audiobook version. I do worry how this book will convert to an audiobook, so bear that in mind if you're going to listen to it. Please let me know if you do and what you think, I'm nosey like that.

Many people will be familiar with Janice Hallett as the author of the phenomenally successful "The Appeal", which deservedly received wide acclaim in 2021. Given how original that book was in style, I thought perhaps I might not enjoy this new book as much — how could she top that?! But I needn't have worried... While the bulk of "The Appeal" consists of emails and text messages between the major characters, "The Twyford Code" is almost entirely made up of transcripts of voice memos, recorded and recovered from the iPhone of main character Steven Smith. Steve (or "Little Smithy", as he's known to his nearest and dearest), struggles with literacy, and so finds this an effective way of documenting his mission to find out what happened to his teacher Miss Isles. As an added quirk, because software has been used to transcribe to 200 audio files, there are some amusing typos throughout — "missiles" instead of "Miss Isles", "mustard" instead of "must've", to give two examples.

Hearing the story in Steve's own words is a great way to get to know him, and he's a very likable character (despite his criminal past!) that I was rooting for throughout. Although, as readers of Hallett's previous book will know, things aren't always what they seem and the author does a great job pulling the rug out from under you...

The novel consists of two parallel stories — Steve's quest to find our what happened to Miss Isles all those years ago, alongside a general history of his life and, in particular, the final 'job' that saw him sent to prison for over a decade. His aim in recording this is to pass on to his estranged son, in the hopes that sharing his story might bring them closer.

The reveals come thick and fast in the end section of the book, and on finishing my reaction was to go back and start again from the beginning immediately!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Like its predecessor, the novel is original in its format – The Appeal was a compilation of emails, texts, legal docs and the like – The Twyford Code is told through the “rough” transcription of audio files that the main character, Steven, has recorded on his son’s phone. The outcome is both funny (Steven hasn’t got a clue how his phone works, so there are plenty of “accidental” interludes) and increasingly addictive. Just as Steven becomes obsessed with solving the mystery, so does the reader (Well, this one anyway).

Steven has never forgotten about the book he found on a bus and took into his remedial English class, whereupon his teacher told him the book had been banned reading in schools for years. When she holds onto it and then later takes the class on a trip to the author’s home, his memory is clouded but the intrigue about it never wanes especially when the teacher doesn’t return with the class from that trip.

Now, decades later, he wants to catch up with those schoolfriends and get to the bottom of what happened to Miss Iles. The audio files map his thought process and his encounters with his former schoolmates, revealing he is not the only one fascinated by The Twyford Code.

So, who was Edith Twyford and why was she inserting coded messages in her children’s stories? Aided by librarian, Lucy, Steven’s fixation takes him into underground tunnels, encounters with other conspiracy theorists/ treasure hunters (??? you decide !!!) looking for a “golden hair”, and shady characters who seem to be following his every move.

The Twyford Code is the epitome of the “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” and demands your attention. The clues are there for the solving, the dodgy transcription errors quickly become second nature as your brain adapts to the mistakes, and the mystery becomes a challenge to be solved. At times, it’s overwhelmingly complex, and I felt the need to read on stopped me from taking in all of the clues, but that’s hardly a criticism. Occasionally, Steven’s audio recording stray from the mystery to reflect on events of his own life, all of which set him up as the most unreliable of narrators … yet, for the most part, it all somehow works.

Overall, The Twyford Code proved to be another excellent mystery with a balance of humour and humanity sprinkled throughout. If you can bear to have your mind messed up on several levels, then you should dive right in. It’s clever, captivating, confusing, and occasionally charming. I cannot wait to see what this author comes up with next.

Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children’s book filled with strange notes. He took it to his English teach, Miss Iles, who became convinced that the book contained a secret code that ran through all of Edith Twyford’s novels. Then, on a class field trip, Miss Iles disappeared. Now, after a long stretch in prison, Steven decides to investigate the disappearance of his favourite teacher, and the code that caused it.

This book was really interesting. It’s a very unusual take on a mystery novel, written in voice recording transcripts, which was a really inventive and effective way of telling the story. One of the key plot points centred around not being able to tell what was true and what wasn’t, and this couldn’t have been presented in a better format.

The Twyford Code is a surprisingly complex and intricate novel, with countless twists. It was impossible to guess the outcome, and many parts didn’t make much sense until I’d read the whole thing, which was very clever. I would definitely recommend this nook to fans of crime of mystery fiction.

I absolutely loved Janice Hallett’s debut novel, The Appeal. With its clever modern take on the epistolary format, relatable small-town setting (complete with all-too-realistic petty squabbles of the main characters), and compelling murder mystery, it combined a ‘cosy’ style with witty social observation and some devilishly difficult puzzles to provide a compulsive page-turner for armchair sleuths everywhere. After finishing The Appeal in a matter of days, Janice’s second book – The Twyford Code – quickly made its way to the top of my most anticipated reads for 2022 and, I’m pleased to say, doesn’t disappoint!

Although foregoing the epistolary style of its predecessor, The Twyford Code is similarly inventive in the way it tells its story, with the majority of the book comprising of transcripts of 200 audio files, retrieved from the iPhone 4 of missing ex-con Stephen Smith, AKA ‘Little Smithy’. Recently released following a lengthy sentence, estranged from the son he never really knew, and adrift in a world that has moved on while he’s been inside, Stephen is drawn to investigate the disappearance of his former Remedial English teacher, Miss Iles, who vanished on an impromptu class field trip many years earlier.

At the time of her disappearance, Miss Iles was seemingly obsessed with a secret code that, she claimed, ran through the books of disgraced children’s author Edith Twyford (a brilliant pastiche of Enid Blyton). For Stephen, who has learnt to read in prison, the idea of a secret code hidden within a series of innocent children’s books. But as he starts to pull together the fractured memories of his own past – and reconnects with friends and classmates from his schooldays – it becomes clear that Miss Iles might have been onto something. The Twyford Code could lead to a great discovery – and Stephen soon realises that he isn’t the only one trying to solve it.

Quite how Janice Hallett manages to weave together such intricate plots utterly baffles me! As in The Appeal, The Twyford Code as enough twists, turns, and revelations to rival Agatha Christie at her best. Seemingly random encounters and insignificant conversations become, by the end of the novel, a vital part of the mystery – and plotlines that seem to have no meaningful connection become intimately entangled as the novel progresses.

As with Christie, you do have to take a few of Hallett’s plot twists in the spirit with which they are intended. There were a couple of moments in The Twyford Code that stretched my suspension of disbelief and, for me, wandered into the realms of the far-fetched. Unlike Poirot or Miss Marple, however, Stephen is a deliberately unreliable narrator and, as the novel progresses, you begin to realise that the more fantastical elements of his narrative may be being included for an entirely different reason – and for a very specific audience.

I also loved the way that Hallett uses the device of audio transcription to render her characters. The transcription software inaccurately transcribes names and colloquialisms – ‘Miss Iles’ becomes ‘missiles’, ‘cos’ becomes ‘Kos’ – and omits expletives from Stephen’s speech with often hilarious effect: ensuring that when, for example, the s[EXPLICIT]t hits the fan, readers can fully appreciate what a lucky f[EXPLICIT]g escape Stephen has had! The software also renders pauses, breaths, shouting, and whispers meaning that, once you’ve got your eye in, you really feel as if the characters are ‘talking’ on the page.

That said, the transcription format is harder to read on the page. Despite the compulsive plot I found the digital proof of The Twyford Code hard going (although, admittedly, I find reading digitally difficult at the best of times due to some ongoing issues with my eyes) and opted to wait for my physical pre-order to arrive before finishing the book. I mentioned ‘getting your eye in’ with the style and, sure enough, once I’d settled down with the hardback, it was much easier for me to follow the format. I’ll also be really interested to see how the audiobook of The Twyford Code is rendered. You’d think it would be easy given the nature of the narrative – but, as becomes clear towards the end of the book, there’s a reason you’re reading transcripts and not ‘listening’ to the audio itself!

The Twyford Code is both an ambitious and accomplished follow-up to Hallett’s best-selling debut. Although quite different in tone and style to The Appeal, fans of that novel will be delighted to find that Hallett’s flare for ingenious plotting has carried over to her second novel – as has her ability to challenge the reader with deliciously devious puzzles! Once I had my physical copy, I stormed through The Twyford Code – and I already can’t wait to see what twists, intrigues, and puzzles Hallett’s next novel has in store for us!

It’s quite a thought to finish The Twyford Code in mid-January and wonder if ANY book this year will come close to matching the intricate planning and devious distractions which Janice Hallett delivers here.

As a child Steven Smith attended an inner city school where he did not shine. Unable to read, school was just a place he attended and it took him away from what seems a troublesome home life.

But one year he had a teacher (for RE) who really seemed to cut through and make a difference in Steven’s life – Miss Iles. Steven and a cluster of his friends seemed to get more from Miss Iles than any other class they attended. One memorable day Steven found a book on a bus, a children’s story by Edith Twyford. Miss Iles has an immediate reaction- it’s a banned book she tells him.

Twyford’s attitudes are very outdated and unpalatable for a modern readership. Of course for a group of adolescents a banned book is instantly more fascinating. But then the bombshell…Miss Iles tells them of a code hidden within the books.

She takes her small class on a trip to Twyford’s cottage down in the English South-West and on that trip Miss Iles disappeared. The kids got home (Steven cannot recall how) and Miss Iles was never seen again.

Years later Steven is newly out of prison (we discover why through the story) and he is looking to find out exactly what happened to Miss Iles on that trip and more importantly he wants to get to the bottom of The Twyford Code – it’s a puzzle which is the focus on dedicated Internet forums and the prize for solving it seems to vary from wealth, health cures and even secrets of extra-terrestrial life.

Steven has learned how to read while in prison and seems to have a natural aptitude for problem solving. Picking up a copy of one of Twyford’s books he sees messages in the words. A return to her cottage suggests a picture clue remains in her study. The hunt is on – who killed Miss Iles, what’s the treasure for solving the code and who are these mysterious strangers who seem to twart their progress at every turn?

The story is excellent. The codes and puzzles which the author uses through the book must have taken an eternity to properly thread into the narrative. I love clever stories and this is fiendishly well done. But this is a spoiler-free zone so I can’t get into the details of what shone through in terms of clever tricks.

One slight rain-cloud hung over The Twyford Code for me. Steven tells the story through audio recordings. That’s to say he turns on a recorder and we see the transcript of his conversation and the responses from others. It’s an interesting quirk and the software on the old iPhone he is using can sometimes make transcript errors – “Miss Iles” becomes “missiles” for the reader. And there are other instances.

Personally I found this narrative style quite tricky to read and it took some of the enjoyment out of the book. My reading fun became an unusual effort of concentration. The story kept me going to the end though as I did want to see how matters resolved. I suspect many people will have no issue with the narrative style but I think I would have preferred to read this through audiobook.

In brief, a great puzzle adventure which will command your attention.

Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children's book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. Wanting to know more, he took it to his English teacher Miss Iles, not realising the chain of events that he was setting in motion. Miss Iles became convinced that the book was the key to solving a puzzle, and that a message in secret code ran through all Twyford's novels. Then Miss Iles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven has no memory of what happened to her. Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Steven decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. Was Miss Iles murdered? Was she deluded? Or was she right about the code? And is it still in use today? Desperate to recover his memories and find out what really happened to Miss Iles, Steven revisits the people and places of his childhood. But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn't just a writer of forgotten children's stories. The Twyford Code has great power, and he isn't the only one trying to solve it.

I was such a massive fan of 'The Appeal', it was such an original, exciting read and one that I will never stop recommending. You can imagine my excitement at getting stuck into this. Which is why it pains me to write this review. This was not the same and I really struggled with it.

Hallett writes this in the format of audio files which was another original idea but for me, it did not work quite as well. I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of this read which I will admit did hamper my enjoyment as the formatting is not there. This is in no way a reflection of Hallett's work but it did mean I was confused by what was happening and it definitely impacted my thoughts on the book.

Back to the plot and I liked the idea of telling the story using audio files but it was a bit too confusing for me. It was hard to tell who was talking and what was happening, I get that this is part of the mystery but I think it needed to be a bit clearer as it was a bit jumbled.

Towards the end of the book, Hallett alters the style, I will not detail how but for me, this format worked a lot better and the last section of the book was definitely the most exciting and gripping. I do think the book could have worked better if it had all been written this way.

'The Twyford Code' is another original mystery from Hallett with plenty of twists. However, I did not find this to be particularly gripping or thrilling and I lost interest.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viper Books for an advance copy.

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett

Many years ago, schoolboy Steven Smith found on a bus a book by Edith Twyford, a writer now considered old-fashioned. It’s covered in mysterious scribbles and messages. He took it to his teacher Miss Isles who became obsessed with it, believing the book to contain the contain a code that can decipher a great mystery. On a school trip to Bournemouth shortly afterwards, she vanished without trace, her disappearance haunting Steven for the rest of his days.

After a stretch in prison, Steven decides to do something about it. He determines to decipher the code himself and to find out what really happened to Miss Isles. Steven isn’t good at writing and so he records all of his interviews with his old schoolfriends and anyone else he encounters in his investigations to solve his own past. But Steven soon discovers that he isn’t the only person to be intent on solving the mystery of the Twyford Code and by then it is too late. Steven is caught in a web and, just out of reach, tantalises the answers to it all.

The Appeal was my favourite crime mystery of 2021 and one of my very top reads of the year. It’s actually one of my favourite novels of all time, not just for the story it tells but for the way in which it tells it. It’s ingenious. An updated epistolary novel, which involves the reader with the mystery in such an engaging and thoroughly gripping way. It’s a hard act to follow but Janice Hallett is a very clever writer and in The Twyford Code she tweaks the style just a bit to deliver another original and consuming standalone mystery.

This time, the novel comprises a series of transcripts. These contain numerous mis-hearings of certain words, presumably due to the transcription software, adding a very curious element to the prose. This is the sort of novel, like its predecessor, in which the reader needs to keep their wits about them, staying alert and always on the look out for clues. The whole book is a puzzle. But where does it lead?

The Twyford Code is also a novel about a vulnerable boy who grows into a damaged soul. We learn about his relationships with his family, his school days and the trouble that he has found himself in. Now he has a mission. But will it be the death of him.

More than that, I cannot say. These are books to immerse oneself in, to be driven by curiosity and fascination to discover where they lead. I cannot wait for the next novel.

PS! I love the cover!

Other review
The Appeal