I picked up this book from Waterstones in Brussels because like so many others the cover caught my attention. The blurb further intrigued me with how the reader appears to have a part in the mystery solving. This is the first book by Janice Hallett and is in the form of an epistolary novel. This essentially implies that the book is in the form of letters. In our case its emails and messages. As mentioned the premise of the book is that there has been a murder and someone has been found guilty. But the lawyer in hindsight feels that an innocent person has been charged and so recruits two of his law students to help sift through all the evidence that was collected related to the case. This evidence is in the form of emails and messages between several people in a small theatre production company which appears to be in the center of the whole dilemma.

This was a very intersting read to begin with. The unique format and the wide range of characters (suspects?) made me pay a lot of attention to every word said. A significant portion of the book is setting up scene before the actual crime is committed, and there is very little of the communication that is available from after the incident. Apart from conversations collected as evidence, we also see a back and forth between the two law students (over WhatsApp apparently which is shown using text bubbles) as they try to reason out the likely suspects, answer the questions put forward to them by their boss, all the while trying to figure out possible motives of each of the people involved. Here again, the unique format makes for an interesting way to go about this and I quite liked it. It felt like I was a silent observer in a group chat discussion which made reading this book actually easier than expected. Time just flew on by without me even realising it.

Before we go on, the next bit may come across as a bit of a spoiler so please avoid if you’re planning on picking up this book.

Hover over for spoiler, skip to avoid. Thanks

I’d recommend this book to any fans of the mystery / crime genre who’re looking for something different. At times reading the constant email threads may seem like a bit of a drag but it’s a good fix for those in need of some goss every now and then.

Rating: 3/5

Links:

• goodreads: The Appeal – Janice Hallett

P.S. This is the first time I’ve tried the whole ‘hide spoilers’ concept. If anyone could let me know if it works as intended that would be awesome. Thanks again!