The Appeal

By: Janice Hallett

Narrated by: Aysha Kala, Daniel Philpott, Rachel Adedeji, Sid Sagar

The Sunday Times Crime Book of the Year

Winner of the 2022 CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger

One murder. Fifteen suspects. Can you uncover the truth?

There is a mystery to solve in the sleepy town of Lower Lockwood. It starts with the arrival of two secretive newcomers, and ends with a tragic death. Roderick Tanner QC has assigned law students Charlotte and Femi to the case. Someone has already been sent to prison for murder, but he suspects that they are innocent. And that far darker secrets have yet to be revealed...

Throughout the amateur dramatics society's disastrous staging of All My Sons and the shady charity appeal for a little girl's medical treatment, the murderer hid in plain sight. The evidence is all there, waiting to be found. But will Charlotte and Femi solve the case? Will you?

©2021 Janice Hallett (P)2021 Hachette Audio UK

Critic reviews

"This dazzlingly clever cosy crime novel completely trumps Richard Osman. A modern Agatha Christie." (Sunday Times)

"This is a case you're about to become obsessed with. A triumph." (Alex North)

"Very different but very satisfying. I thoroughly recommend The Appeal." (Elly Griffiths)

Brilliantly executed modern whodunnit

Rarely give five stars but Hallet’s effort deserves it. She has crafted a well-structured and expertly paced whodunnit that takes many tropes and devices from classic crime fiction and weaves them expertly into a cleverly structured narrative. It keeps you engaged and guessing throughout, and peels away the mysteries in a satisfactory manner. The subplots and red herrings are good enough that one is ready to overlook a couple of more obvious plot kinks.

The voice actors do a decent job overall, but I give the production a star less because for a tapestry this rich in characters a third female voice was really quite necessary.

Not my taste

But to grim and tragic for me, but clever idea. Too many creepy characters in one small group — i prefer to like at least one person

One to concentrate the mind.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though was glad I’d also bough the Kindle version so I was able to switch to the written word at times. There are a lot of characters and the format, comprising of emails and WhatsApp messages can be confusing when listening for long periods. I occasionally had to rewind to check who was writing to whom, though the narrators were very good.

The plot only really got complicated near the end when various theories were being tested and it’s here I found the written text handy to refer to.

It was fabulous to read something so different and which gave me something to really concentrate on. I highly recommend it.