THE APPEAL

This book came as a surprise to me. I have read so many crime thrillers but this one stands out. The world writter has created of a small community is marvelous. I enjoyed evry bit of that world. Especially the format of the book is unique. The entire book is in the form of emails to each other that makes it more interesting each character is designed with great detail and their interpersonal relationship are expressed very naturally. A suspense is also twisted many times. A must read.

It sure leaves you guessing. One tiny detail which would seem not important encompassed all the clue you needed to pinpoint the never thought that person would be a killer character. Good luck finding that very detail because trust me it's worth the trouble. Or was it? Happy reading folks.

IT was difficult to read through a series of emails and texts. You dont relate to the characters at all

Found this book recommendation on Amazon and I'm glad I bought the book. Its style is epistolary but very modern as it is narrated as emails and WhatsApp chats. Initially I felt that there were too many characters to keep track of, but it soon falls into place nicely.The book is an absolute page turner and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to get their teeth into a nice murder mystery.

The book is written in a completely different format , as a series of emails exchanged between a group of people. But it’s riveting and unputdownable.

It is a beautiful read but far too complicated. I would be revealing the plot if I explain in more detail but some aspects of it were very obvious .

The average rating of this book is quite high, so maybe the format worked for most of the readers, but definitely not for me. I could tolerate a few mails and when they actually fit in the context. But here mails were exchanged just for the heck of it. Most of them should have been verbal or face to face communication.How did the attorney get hold of email communication between even minor characters remotely involved with the murder. And they didnt have any emails from/ to the victim? that was convenient.There was no interview transcript for most of the major players. The Victim has received a voice mail and that person is never questioned?Lot of fillers and repetitions. Nothing happened till page 250. I wanted to get into the book and murder someone just to have some action, preferably the 'insipid' Isabel Beck, just to stop her from writing those stupid emails and stop fawning over Sam.There is no way on earth, the junior lawyers solve the mystery just by going through these correspondence (WITHOUT A SINGLE EVIDENCE). The way Charlotte and femi break the code would put Dan Brown to shame.

Wanna try your hand at being a detective?Janice Hallett offers the reader a once in a lifetime chance to unearth the clues and secrets surrounding a community thru mails, messages, and texts and thus uncover a murderer hiding in plain sight. Now if you think, this is gonna be easy as devouring ice cream, think again, the MAZE is just beginning.With a horde of characters and a multitude of events surrounding a family and the community of friends who are members of an amateur drama club, the mayhem explodes in all ways possible. With an unusual and quirky style of narration, Janice Hallett rocks the literary world, the only drawback is this may work for some but turn into an utterly cumbersome process for another. I felt like, troubleshooting a crisis in an office where 50 employees give a different version of the calamity that had happened with the project submission, but it is left to one or two individuals to sift thru hundreds of emails to identify the core issue.Just like any group function, there is also the minutiae of daily life that are mentioned in the mail, the gossip, the backbiting, the favoritism, the edgy games, “you said, she said, I said” obfuscation, the malicious intent, the corruption, malpractices, the manipulation, abuse of volunteer profession, small lies that boomerang into a frenzy, there’s everything and a bit more in this one of a kind mystery thriller by Janice Hallett. And of course, Izzy, what a character, the creepiest, weirdest person, I wouldn’t wish as a friend on my greatest enemy.Pick it up and guarantee you are going to put it down, the characters are varied, only 2 or 3 have distinctive voices, most are unlikable but stick with it until about halfway thru, and then be surprised with the mastery of the technique used by the author with panache. It is hard to write an entire novel with only emails, texts, and messages and then to top it by creating a mystery set around people who sound like you and me amidst the daily grind of life, brilliance beyond words.

It is clever and it is entertaining, and it is filled with red herrings. But it is also filled with emails and they become so convoluted and numerous they remind one of the daily deluge which should be deleted. Gleaning personality traits from them, understanding the clues (misleading, misrepresenting and misuse) becomes a bit laborious. At the same time, there is enough intrigue that keeps you plowing on til the end. Only it wasn’t the ending I wanted/enjoyed.

That's it: just don't bother buying it... Very childish and boring. It seemed promising at first, a sort of 21st century epistolary novel, but it just ended up being a teen game in book form. If that was the author's intention all along, then I've been duped into buying it, for the book was advertised as a coming from a new Agatha Christie in the making. That's a bit of an overstatement, to say the least. I ended up reading it through just for the sake of it --- maybe it would eventually surprise me. Wrong decision. Again, just don't bother.

I've enjoyed the book, especially the complex relationships between the characters and how the development takes place.I'm not a huge fan of the format though, I read way too many emails in my day to day, and I simply don't thrive through that format, which is applicable for most part of the book. Nevertheless, I believe the effect it causes helps empathising with the effort the investigators must make to disentangle the case. So, could this format be considered painful but necessary?

This is my third book by Hallett, and I absolutely love her style where you can sniff through mails and messages and transcripts, to try and solve a intelligent mystery. To me, the format brings the mystery much closer to a form of true crime, but without the guilt of having a good time at the expense of real life victims. I guess that makes me an Hallett aficionado and I will probably always read what she writes.If I had one remark to make, it is that it was my least favorite from the three books I've read of her so far. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I got the impression that the story sometimes had to fit the messages and that made for some weird and elaborate mails or whatsapps. Instead of just writing "bit late, be there in a sec" what we all would normally do, it was more "bit late because I ran into character X who told me a dirty secret about Y, which made me want to do Z before I could run the errand A..." But I believe it might be because it is the first book that is written in this style, so it is gladly pardoned.What I also noticed is how all characters are completely awful. Really, no-one is nice or just plain normal, and in this case this is what really kept me ready later at night than was good for me, as I was routing for them all to fall flat on their faces, ha! It's been a long time since I felt that way about characters in a book. Was it a satisfying ending? I won't tell, because I don't want to give away any spoilers. All I can say is that yesterday night was really late as I was dying to know.The book is closed, I enjoyed it and can't wait to read her next mystery.

Very entertaining book, originally plotted and catching. Absolutely recommended