The Appeal: The smash-hit bestseller

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Helen is considered the most talented actor in the group, and every play chosen must have a leading role for her.

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ***’This dazzlingly clever cosy crime novel completely trumps Richard Osman’ – SUNDAY TIMES’Witty, clever and completely addictive’ – MAIL ON SUNDAY’Agatha Christie for the 21st century’ – THE TIMES________________________________________ONE MURDER.

It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance. No matter how much I love them or how interesting they are, I do not ever enjoy reading books with THAT many characters. The Appeal is a mystery novel which truly deserves its hype, which believe me is a very rare thing indeed! There are a large number of potential suspects, however once you get down to it there are only a handful of true possibilities. I loved the ambitious and unusual approach’ – SOPHIE HANNAH’A brilliantly fresh, ingenious and original whodunnit.

If you're looking for a crime novel that is very different but very satisfying I thoroughly recommend The Appeal by Janice Hallett.Though perhaps you should make sure said cap is your best houndstooth deerstalker, so you can Sherlock your way through this clever mystery. When I started The Appeal, I simply couldn’t stop, inhaling nearly one hundred pages with my morning coffee. While at times somewhat overwhelming thanks to the large cast of characters and often seemingly superfluous clues, I stuck at it and I’m so very glad that I did.

The Fairway Players, a local theatre group, is in the midst of rehearsals when tragedy strikes the family of director Martin Hayward and his wife Helen, the play’s star. Or to use a simile, the threads of this story are like a lot of cars all racing towards a central collision point and you don’t know what the fall out will be, who will survive the wreckage. Femi’s language in particular contains some jargon: ‘All we’ll have is a spectrum of interpretation to examine, analyse and frame into something solid. Reading this book made me feel like I was at the theatre, in which you become so engrossed in what is going on that you forget that there are an additional two pairs on eyes on the information you are taking in.Then she came up with a far fetched plot and tried to think of what false hints she could throw at the reader to keep them guessing, but the truth is you really stop caring half way through. Issy is a nurse on a geriatric ward and is delighted when her new colleague Sam Greenwood and her husband Kel agree to audition. Suspicions mount, accusations are made and the tension leads to a DEAD body, and an ARREST on the night of the play’s dress rehearsal . One of this crew is about to go down for the crime, but in the run up to the trial, their lawyers parse through the evidence themselves. What didn’t work for me was the length of the novel, the repetitiveness and the inclusion of too many unnecessary characters and details (and the exclusion of some relevant information).

A lot of rambling from a lot of characters, the mystery is just weighted down with message overload! She wrote articles and speeches for, among others, the Cabinet Office, Home Office, and Department for International Development.There is little or no breathing space as every page contains relevant information and demands the reader's full attention. With an epistolary novel narrative voice is key, especially when you have as large a cast of characters as Hallett does. Consequently, scepticism is my standard response to modern mysteries which are being raved about on Facebook and Twitter, with grand claims of the author being the next Agatha Christie and have thousands of 5-star reviews on Goodreads, (especially when this is before the book has even been published). So, so good’ – INDIA KNIGHT’Extremely addictive, it will reel you in, one piece of evidence at a time’ – ALEX PAVESI’Takes the whodunnit to a whole new level.