As an avid reader, I have explored many different genres of literature. Usually I don’t stray very far from the typical rom-com novels with cartoony covers. However recently, I have been loving the mystery/thriller genre, and it has led me to discover a plethora of titles and authors I would have earlier disregarded. One of the most notable authors that I have found is Janice Hallett. Since reading my first novel of hers, The Appeal, I have not been able to get enough of her writing.
Janice Hallett is a British writer who has made a big name for herself in the UK. Her novel, The Appeal, was the UK’s second best fiction debut of 2021, and it was surely one of my top reads of this past year. I just recently picked up that novel’s spin off novella, The Christmas Appeal, and fell right back in love with the characters and plot of the original story.
The most unique (and my particular favorite) part of Hallett’s mysteries is that she writes and organizes them in a way that stands out from the rest of the genre. All of her books are written in forms of evidence, rather than in a regular story format. One of her novels, The Twyford Code, features only audio tape recordings. This means that readers are only given the transcribed tape files that the detectives would have access to, as opposed to reading the storyline from a third person perspective. Another book of hers, The Mysterious Alperton Angels, features text threads and emails from the characters, but never the formal dialogue you would expect from a mystery book. This allows for the stories to be much more interactive for the reader, as well as making it harder to figure out who is the culprit in each case. Janice Hallett has done a wonderful job at creating novels that keep you on your toes at all times. I have just about read everything she’s written. I am currently a quarter of the way through her newest book, The Examiner, and every night I find myself excited to jump back into the story. Her work is truly unlike any of her peers in the mystery/thriller genre, and I am impatiently waiting for her to announce any details of a future novel!