I really enjoyed reading the author’s first novel, The Appeal. I was delighted to be approved to read a copy of The Twyford Code and had high expectations.

I like the cover and find it different and eye catching. I would definitely pick it up if I saw it in a bookshop.

The Twyford code is a series of audio transcripts by a man called Steve, recently released from prison. He’s recording messages for his estranged son, recounting an event in his childhood, forty years before.
Miss Isles, the class English teacher, becomes obsessed with a book by Edith Twyford, believing there is a code within the books. She takes the class on a trip and never returns. Was her disappearance something to do with the code?
Steve is trying to find out what happened to his teacher, and trying to solve the code on the way.

I found this book to be much slower paced than The Appeal, and I struggled to connect with the characters and get into the story.

I read the book on my Kindle and found it difficult to keep track of the dates and times on the files, I’m not sure how relevant they were to the story.

It felt slow paced and I found it dragged quite a lot. The last 20% or so picked up a little but this book really fell flat for me.

The idea for the plot was something different but unfortunately I didn’t find it as engaging and interesting as I had hoped.

I will still look out for more books from this author.

2.5 stars rounded to 2.

Thanks to Viper Books and NetGalley for a copy to review.

I loved The Appeal, I've bought it for so many people as gifts and will continue to do so. I was less struck with this one. Whilst also utilising the epistolary form, the emails of The Appeal were much more accessible than the audio transcripts of this book. It took me a long while to get into the rhythms of, and the pay-off wasn't really worth the difficulty it took to get there. I didn't feel all that invested in the mystery or the character.

Another great read, uniquely set up with emails and transcriptions of audio files.
I’ll admit, I did not enjoy it as much as the first mystery but I still love the premise. It’s so different from other crime fiction and grips me until the last page.

If there ever was a book so difficult to write a review for – this is it. I was hooked by The Appeal and wanted to see if the second novel lived it up to. It did, but in a completely different way, I was expecting the same and got something totally different and it blew me away!

A famous children’s book, a famous author; Edith Twyford. Left on a bus and found by Steve Smith. It is 1983 and Steve can’t read so he takes the book to school to Miss Isles and she reads it out. Miss Isles is enthralled, the book contains a code and that leads Steve and his remedial English class to Bournemouth. Miss Isles never returns from that trip. What happened?

40 years later Steve is still puzzled by the mystery of Miss Isles, the book and what really happened. Having lived a life mainly behind bars, lost his wife, alienated from his own family and no longer part of anything, Steve wants to get to the truth. Although estranged from his son, he is given an old phone from him and Steve although still not as educated and well read uses it to record all of his thoughts and understandings of what happened all those years ago.

All the recordings are transcribed and this is what forms the book and we get to find out what happened to Miss Isles but also Steve’s past and how he has come to have been in and out of prison and the circumstances that have led him to record his past.

This is a complex book but fascinating and it draws you in and you find yourself being pulled back into the recordings and the voice of Steve. I admit it took me longer to get used to this novel than it did her first, but once I slipped into the way of the writing and the voice I was intrigued as the truth become closer and closer.

There are twists and turns and when the book reaches it conclusion, it had me wanting to go back and read from the beginning, knowing the ending to see the clues. A true sign of a thoroughly cleverly constructed mystery novel and I am still puzzling the final mystery.

If you want to try something different, it you want to be challenged, if you love word games, puzzles and have an understanding of language then pick up this book, you will not be disappointed.

I cannot wait to see how the author tackles this genre in her third novel, I know she is going to blow us all away with it.

I loved this book! It follows Steven as he becomes quite obsessed with a mystery stemming back to his childhood when his teacher disappeared on a school trip and it’s all linked to a book she was reading to them. The novel is told in transcribed audio files that Steven has recorded as he sets out to find out where Miss Isles is and what happened to her. This book grabbed me from the very beginning and it didn’t let go of me – I even had a dream about it during the period of time I was reading it! I loved how the mystery is slowly uncovered – there are clues left for the reader but I only pieced it together right before all was revealed and I adored how it kept me on my toes. I very much enjoyed The Appeal by this author but I think The Twyford Code was even better and I can’t wait to see what she writes next!

The Twyford Code is a peculiar and exceptional book. The book consists of transcripts from voice memos. The transcripts are made by machine, so some words are transcript wrongly, due to poor sound quality or to talker’s accent. But it’s no problem, pretty soon you get used to it, and you read these “wrong” words correctly.
The voice memos are made by Steve Smith, who has recently been released from prison and these voice memos he is making for his supervising officer, instead of writing down his thoughts, he records them. His thoughts are about his childhood, his life before prison. He also records his meeting with friends and his phone calls.
The moment that changed his life, the moment that he is reminiscing about is the moment when he found a children's book, a book that his teacher told was banned, but the book consisted of a code that is told to be very important, since with this code you could find something very important. But the teacher is lost on the day when the class is visiting the author's hometown. That’s the moment Steve starts his voice memos with.
Or is it the teacher and the code the most important thing that Steve is looking for and for whom he really records his voice memos and does the treasure for what the code is needed really exist? And most importantly, do you read the transcripts correctly, can you really read this book? Or is it the same book at the end that it was at the beginning?
It was a brilliant book, a really brilliant book. It has so many layers and it is really stealthily written. True, it is a slow burn book, but boy is the ending awesome.

I can see why this wouldn't appeal to some people - the layout is a bit awkward, and it's written in a bit of a non-standard format - I loved this book. I thought it was absolutely brilliant, and could not have foreseen the ending (I'm not that clever). The clues throughout are very subtle and well-placed, and I read it in a day. I couldn't put it down and have some serious writing envy.

The Famous Five comparison is obvious, and the characters mirror those famous kids in many ways: there are five of them, three men and two women; they're searching for treasure and clues to a mystery of what happened to a long disappeared teacher, and there's a hint of danger and deception whilst doing so.

Or is there?

This is the beauty of the book, that as you get closer to the end nothing is quite as it seems. Not even - especially - the narrator. Probably one of the best books I've read this year (so far), and definitely up there as one of the most clever.

Highly recommended.

This is a murder mystery that is tied up with the novels of a children’s author. It is told through voice recordings that have been transcribed.

I read this having loved Hallett’s previous novel, The Appeal, which is told through letters, emails and other documents. I was excited to read more by Hallett and experience another unusual format.

I think the narrating via transcribed voice recordings was a truly unique concept. I haven’t seen this done before. I don’t think it was quite as successful as her previous novel however.

I didn’t find the mystery element as engaging in this novel and the pacing was a little jumpy for me.

Overall, I enjoyed this and cannot wait to see what Hallett writes next.

AD - This copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I enjoyed the appeal it was so original and thought I would pick this one up.

I was disappointed in this novel and it didn’t leave up to the first one for me .

I very much enjoyed this, it took me a while to get into but once I did I loved the characters and I loved the mystery in a mystery which had me guessing a lot. The final reveal was very clever and I liked that the whole book absolutely played me.

I like Janice Hallett's way of telling stories, the unique way both books I have read by her have been told have really engaged me and I've enjoyed reading something which has felt very new.

Solid 4 stars.

Having love the writing style of 'The Appeal' with the story presented in various ways, I had high hopes for this but found having everything presented as transcripts of recorded voice memos, complete with omissions, errors and switches between speakers, to be a little confusing at times. Having now read the whole story, I see that it's very much a 'trust the process' book. Stick with it and it will be a rewarding read. The little crumbs of information dropped along the way all come together and I found myself checking for anagrams, hidden messages and codes as I read the final pages. I look forward to seeing what comes next.

As readers we are being totally spoilt already this year with the number of excellent books being published and I am thrilled to get to talk about this one! Janice Hallett has once again absolutely knocked it out of the park – I adored The Twyford Code. At a risk of over sharing, I started reading whilst in the bath and was so engrossed I hadn’t noticed the water had gotten cold until I started shivering. It genuinely is that captivating!

Written as a series of transcribed audio files, the clever little details within add an extra richness to the story. We get a key at the start to explain why there are occasional gaps, pauses and some of the words may appear odd within the transcripts. It really gave it an authentic feel as I read and could almost hear Steven speaking it to me. He has had an interesting past and a bit of a chequered past and makes for a cracking narrator for the story. I wouldn’t necessarily have pegged him as one who would take such an interest in the code however, it sounds like the events surround Miss Isles were so odd that perhaps it would bring out the investigative desire in anyone! I liked how he reflected not just on the day in question but also about other elements of his life. It was also nice to have someone not very technologically gifted as the main character.

Steven brings in a few old school friends to try and establish what on Earth went on during that apparently unauthorised and somewhat bizarre school trip. As the years have passed, understandably each has changed a fair from the teenage personalities they once had. Their interest in Steve’s theory vary with some much less keen to even acknowledge any hint of weirdness. The style of books that Edith Twyford writes sort of reminded me of Enid Blyton, although Edith’s are said to be a bit blander! This made me feel quite nostalgic for my childhood as I really adored The Famous Five! I loved that a children’s author could set in motion the chain of events that set Steve and his friends off on their investigation.

I really cannot over state how much I enjoyed The Twyford Code and I think that it will appeal to a very wide range of readers. If you fancy giving your brain something to tick over whilst getting caught up within a great plot then this is definitely for you.

This had me enthralled. Haven't read the author's previous novel, so going to download that now. Wasn't expecting that twist!!

Do not feel discouraged by #TheTwyfordCode by #JaniceHallett. The first 30 odd percent is deliberately, beautifully disorienting. I can only equate the early part of the story with Shakespeare, in that, you need to get your ear into the rhythm and from there, you don't notice the oddities, the quirks. Believe me, I wanted to give up, start something else but I'm very glad I didn't. There are layers in this book are, quite frankly, staggering. They're completely preposterous but at the same time, given the modern world, completely believable. If you're after a clever, skillful story that's partly biographical, partly mystery, this is for you.

After loving The Appeal I was excited to read this but I just couldn’t connect to the characters here. The story was very intriguing and they’d what kept me progressing but I didn’t really care about any of the characters and was far more interested in the mystery than them.

The Appeal, Janice Hallet’s debut, was one of my favourite reads of 2021 so I had this one preordered as soon as I learned about it. With high expectations going in, I was worried it wouldn’t have the same pay off, particularly being written in a similar style, but never have I been so glad to be proven wrong.

While The Appeal told the story through emails and texts, The Twyford Code is another epistolary novel that cleverly unravels through the use of transcriptions of voice recordings from the illiterate Steven following his release from prison.

One of the first series I remember reading and loving as a child was The Mystery Series by Enid Blyton (The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage, The Mystery of the Invisible Necklace, etc etc). I loved to piece together the clues myself and then reread the books over and over to see the clues when I knew the outcome. I have to assume that the famous children’s author in this book, Edith Twyford, is based upon her but not only that, Janice Hallet herself feels like the Enid Blyton for adults in the 21st century and I think that’s partly why I love this so much.

I had no idea where this was going as I read it and felt like I was running out of pages for it to be tied up in a way that was satisfying while also making sense. And then it happened and my brain broke and I’m still wrapping my head round it.

I didn’t think this was going to be a five star read - I thought it was good, but was saying that I wasn’t as hooked as I was with The Appeal (which I also gave 5⭐️). Stick with it. I’m struggling to explain why it was so good without giving it away so I’ll simply say that this is pure genius. The clues were all there but did I see them? NO.

So clever and captivating, it’s a code within a code. As if I don’t have enough unread books to read, I’ll be going back to this one when I have finally recovered from it in order to appreciate it even more from start to finish.

I really enjoyed Hallett's first book and found it quite original. This was also a lot of fun.
She does characterization really good, and it's entertaining to try and solve the mystery. I love the formats, they are quite refreshing. I think it'd be better if the books were a tad shorter.

Thanks a lot for this copy!

I had really hoped this would've been as good as the Appeal by Janice Hallett but it wasn't there for me. I didn't really get on with the way this was written as it didn't have the flow i was looking for. Like the Appeal, it was written in a stylistic way but this style choice wasn't for me. The mystery was interesting and had some good turns and reveals but i think this is a weaker second book by Hallett and it had the potential to be so much more than it was.

Cleverly told through transcripts of telephone conversations and voice recordings. Steve has recently been released from prison and is recording messages explaining his background and detailing his attempts to find his old school teacher, whose disappearance seems to be tied up with a mystery involving the Twyford "Famous Six" books. Some parts difficult to get through as it seems to go round in circles at times but stick with it as this is by design. Great ending.

I absolutely loved The Appeal and was excited for the chance to read The Twyford Code, which also features Hallett's skill in telling a story in a unique way. The main character in The Twyford Code is narrating a story into an old iPhone and the reader is given transcripts from those recordings to read. Steven, the main character, begins working to solve a code and describes that adventure, as well as events from his past.

While I couldn't turn the pages fast enough when reading The Appeal, this one seemed to go around in circles during large portions of the book. The transcription discrepancies that turned phrases such as "must have" into "mustard" were amusing but took time to get used to. There were also a lot of slang terms I was unfamiliar with. In addition, although Steve's backstory is important, I think some of it could have been streamlined and the reader would have still gotten the details they needed. I'm usually a fast reader, but it took me a while to get through the first portion of the book.

I'm so glad I stuck with it, though! The last part is fantastic and things start coming together that show how clever the whole book really is. The ending is wonderful and very surprising and will keep me thinking about this story for a long time.

I received this ebook through the courtesy of Viper Books. An advance copy was provided to me at no cost, but my review is voluntary and unbiased.