This is a mystery which is very clever. Most of the characters are well drawn. It is a story within a story. If the story falls into the wrong hands then the mystery would not be solved. Follow the clues and it will be, but which are clues and which are fiction?

The story is dictated into a phone as the author is dyslexic and it is the transcript which we read. There are two parts to the transcript, where the man dictating follows clues to explain what happened to Miss Isles and the possible solving of the Twyford Code. There are elements of Enid Blyton and the Famous Five in these chapters. The second, where the story is autobiographical.

This is a book which does make you think about the social norms, what it must have been like to be seen as a failure at school because you were dyslexic and how given the correct equipment a dyslexic can achieve a great deal.

Just fab. I had no idea where this story was heading! I found this such a quick read and really struggled to put it down!

I loved The Appeal for it’s mixed media, as it’s told through emails / whatsapp messages and The Twyford Code is no different – told entirely through voice recordings!

I will admit it took me a little while to get into it with the voice recordings as it did jump around a lot from Steven narrating into the recorder, to conversations recorded and I struggled to figure out which character was talking at times.

However, once I finally got used to the writing style I was fully absorbed and if anyone was looking at me whilst I was reading they would have seen me with a very confused face – but that’s not a bad thing. I really don’t want to say too much as this is definitely one of those books that you need to go into without knowing anything as it’s a mystery with many many layers.

All I will say is that I’m in awe of Janice Hallett for coming up with something so unique and so intricately crafted that it blew my mind. I thought I was good at solving clues….turns out I’m not in the slightest!

If you enjoyed The Appeal and think you have what it takes to solve a mystery then make sure you give this a read!

I think I was bewitched by this book: I couldn’t eat or sleep, or even breath at times, as I was reading it. If I could give it more stars, I definitely would. There are not enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe The Twyford Code. I haven’t read a book as good as this one since The Appeal by the same author. Brilliantly written, original, clever and exciting… I am feeling bereaved that it’s finished.

I've read and loved The Appeal, so when I saw The Twyford Code I knew it'll be good, but it completely exceeded my expectations!

The author still plays with the form, this time we have a book made out of the audio transcripts. They're recorded by an ex felon Steve, who tries to re-unite with the kids from school and solve the mystery of a disappearing teacher. Based on conversations he figures out that everything that was odd in the past started with a book that supposedly has a hidden code in it. He also tries to re-unite with his son, who is not ready to have a biological dad in his life.

Throughout the book we learn Steve's story, which is full of surprises!

When we get to the end, we learn that nothing was as it seemed (although I had my suspicions), and honestly I wanted to read the book again!

It's a brilliant story, and the execution is extraordinary. I don't know how much work went into planning it and careful writing, but hats off. I'm amazed by what Janice did. Well done!

An absolute must read!

I haven’t read Janice Hallett’s first book so I came to this with no preconceptions.
However,I have to admit I found it hard going,mainly because of the format.It’s told as a series of transcribed audio recordings,mainly told by an ex-con called Steven Smith. Because of this,there are all sorts of misspellings and gaps,and I found it really hard to get any continuity as the story jumped back and forth to different times and different people .speaking on the recordings
The idea of the story is that Steven is attempting to solve a puzzle set in a series of children’s books written in the war years by an Enid Blyton type author which he believes will lead to hidden gold.
I acknowledge that it’s a clever idea but it just wasn’t my taste in books and I really didn’t enjoy it at all.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review which reflects my own opinion.

I absolutely loved Janice Hallett's debut, The Appeal, so had high hopes for this her second novel. The Twyford Code has received rave reviews but for me it was a sadly disappointing and disjointed read. I like the way Hallett explores different novel writing formats and I was soon gripped by the format she used in The Appeal. However, it took me a while to get into the format here and I didn't find it an easy read. Despite that I feel that once I got over this initial challenge I was gripped for some of the way through by the story of Steven and his old school friends who are searching for their teacher Miss Iles who went missing many decades ago. I did find the pacing uneven though and finishing the novel became a bit of a chore for me. Hallett is an original and clever writer though and I will certainly look forward to reading her next novel. I am definitely in the minority with this review, so please do give this a read if you enjoyed Hallett's debut.

A brilliant and refreshing crime novel .Chosen because I loved The Appeal by the same author .
I really enjoyed and was challenged by the book .An excellent read

I had read The Appeal by Janice Hallett previously so was interested to see how she was going to follow up that story which i had enjoyed.
The Twyford Code is told from a series of transcript audio files made by Steven Smith a released prisoner to his estranged son in an attempt to connect with him. Steven's early life had been plafpgued by deprivation and neglect which led him into a life if crime. The mysterious disappearance of his teacher whilst at school comes back to haunt him and the audio files are his attempt to unravel this. It links to a childhood book that he read that is also shrouded in mystery.
Nothing is quite what but seems in this book and coupled with errors in the transcription with mistranslations of words adds to the twists and turns.
Hallett has plotted a story that will send readers down one rabbit hole after another. What seems like a straightforward mystery: what happened to the teacher, what is the code supposedly embedded in a series of old children's books now frowned on (a nod to Enid Blyton), this story will appeal to fans of mysteries, puzzles and crosswords!
An enjoyable read

Spellbound. This novel had be spellbound for the first 3/4 and then totally disappointed me with an anticlimactic end.

Hallett delivers a very intricate story in an unusual format: the transcript of audio messages recorded on an IPhone. A intriguing story about a group of friends, a passionate teacher and a book. A story of spies and secret codes, a story of a crazy search for a code integrated in a children's book(I liked that the author integrated a story similar to Kit Williams' Masquerade without making it feel as a rip off) . A story of a rough life, a young boy who was dealt a bad hand and ultimately a story of redemption.

I cannot put into words how enthralled I've been, how engrossed in the story of the code in the book. How much I've felt for S.S. and how much I've wanted him to have a sort of happy ending. The story built and built and now, thinking about it I fail to see how it should have ended to be satisfying. But what's certain is that what we've got as an ending was a huge disappointment. While I appreciated that we got an explanation of sort, and S.S was a very clever lad indeed, the final exchanges of voice mails seemed dispassionate to me, lacking in emotion and intrigue. The open to interpretation last page was something, but not enough to make up for the bang this story needed!

Well this book was a lot of fun. Wasn't sure what to expect when I picked it up but what I found was a blend of what amounts to a very traditional, cosy crime style of mystery, told in a very modern and unique way. It is a story steeped in suspense, one that using a wonderful sleight of hand, makes you think you have handle on what is happening, whilst hiding the truth in plain sight. There are many different aspects to this story, many layers that pile upon each other in such a clever way that you cannot tell that they are there, let alone how they fit together, until right in the dying moments. With echoes of the golden era of cosy crime, and an art imitating life nod to mystery stories of many a childhood, this is an Agatha Christie, meets Enid Blyton, meets true crime podcast kind of story that kept me hooked throughout.

This is, effectively, the story of Steven Smith, former jailbird, who takes it upon himself to solve a mystery that has long fascinated him - the disappearance of his former teacher, Miss Iles. Now I don't want to say too much more about the plot than that, and you can glean all you need to know about the story from the blurb, but in Steven's mind, the whole thing links back to a book he found on a bus on the way into school. Now this is not a chronological tale, the story moves back and forth between the present day as Steven investigates as much as he can about the fateful day, and his memories of the time, snippets from his childhood that add context to his obsession.

But this is no straightforward story and, although technically told from a first person perspective, the narration is actually brought to readers via transcripts of a series of audio recordings that Steven made on a phone given to him by his estranged son. It means that we get to hear a lot of Steven's pontification, whilst also getting evidence straight from the horses mouth as he tracks down his former classmates in a bid to get to the truth. It's very clever, but. also very quirky, and it took a while to settle into the styling of the book as, due to the nature of transcription software, not all language used is a literal representation of what is said. Factor in regional accents, quick speech patterns etc and Miss Iles is no longer a secondary school teacher, more something you'd expect to see launched from a submarine ...

Because of that, because of the unique nature of the narrative, you may feel a little disconnected from the story at first, but I am glad I kept reading. I soon settled into the flow of the story, found myself automatically translating the written speech into the correct narrative, and was absorbed into what is, truly, a really fascinating mystery. Not only the disappearance of Miss Iles, but also the whole concept of the eponymous 'Twyford Code', a mystery allegedly written into all of Edith Twyford's books which is purported to hide a long held secret. Secret societies, fanatics, underground web pages, and a constant threat of something dark, a foreboding presence determined to catch Steven out, keep the tension and the suspense alive and my attention fully on the book.

I loved the character observations in this book, the opportunity to learn more about Steven's past providing a real insight into the man he has become and the reason behind his obsession with finding the truth. And yet, there is so much more to the book too, so many things I wasn't expecting and didn't see coming. Little twists that maybe made me doubt the narration that little bit more, when it was already clear that much of what Steven believes may well have been a figment of his imagination. There is always that air of uncertainty, that suspicion, that intrigued me and left me unprepared for an ending that made me smile in complete satisfaction. It's also left me keen to get and read The Appeal now, a book I've had in my tbr for too long.

A fascinating, original, twisted and unexpected mystery novel that really gets the old brain whirring. Definitely recommended.

I picked this story as l had read the previous book by this author “The Appeal” and the unusual way it was written. The Twyford Code is just as absorbing written in the style of audio files transcribed from an iPhone. We have the mystery of Steven Smith released from prison wanting to connect with his estranged son. He has always had difficulty with reading and writing due to his deprived upbringing so turns to audio files. His childhood disappearance of his teacher is surrounded in mystery can the Twyford code reveal all. His connection to the Harrison crime family will also come back to haunt him. I was really taken into the young lives of Steven and his friends and their help in revealing his lost memories. It really was like an excellent Agatha Christie story with a real sting in the tale. I was not sure of Steve’s back story with the Harrison crime family and his spell in prison it seemed to slow the pace overall. I was glad l kept with it when many puzzling things became clear.
I was given an arc of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Having recently enjoyed The Appeal by Janice Hallett, I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to read her new novel, The Twyford Code.

The Twyford Code is written in the format of voice note transcripts, which is an unusual authorial strategy which took a little while to get used to. However, it soon became clear that the format was a necessary element and helped to create a real sense of the protagonist, ex-gangster Steven Smith. What happened to Smithy as a child and during the robbery which sent him to prison is slowly revealed through the course of the recordings. Will his old school friends help him once he’s released? What really happened to his teacher? What has this all got to do with an Enid Blyton-esque children’s author from World War 2?

A twisty and enjoyable book, recommended for puzzle and crossword fans to get those clues solved!

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

The Twyford Code is, I think, going to be one of those Marmite stories…but, however you respond to it overall, it’s a cleverly constructed puzzle.
Told through a series of audio file transcripts, it appears to be a series of recordings from ex-con Steven Smith to his son. In the files, Steven tries to work out exactly what happened to his remedial English teacher, Miss Isles, after she took he and his peers on a school trip and disappeared. For Steven this event is inextricably linked to his discovery of a book on a bus, a book by the writer Edith Twyford. This book was filled with strange markings, which his teacher interpreted as a code for helping to decipher a long-forgotten mystery. Steven can only recall fragments of that day so upon his release from prison he tries to use his old schoolmates to work out what happened.
Initially, I found it quite a puzzle to read. The transcriptions are not always clear, and some words are inaccurately presented. However, once you get a feel for the language then it is less noticeable.
The story is a fantastic one. Seen through the eyes of a rather unlikely hero, it’s very much a story that seems to make little sense. Steven’s obsession with the Twyford Code and his attempts to work out what it all means lead to all manner of scrapes. Things become increasingly dangerous, and it seems that there may be more to this than we were led to believe.
As the story nears its conclusion it becomes clearer that what has been presented to us is very much a smokescreen. Usually, this would annoy me no end, but I found it helped to make sense of some of the little details that had irritated me as I was reading. Now there was a reason for them, and it wasn’t quite what I expected.
I’m excited to see how this book is received by others once it’s released. Now I have finished it and know what’s being hidden, I think this might be a book to reread and enjoy in a whole new light. Though I enjoyed The Appeal, this was a whole new experience and I can’t wait to see what Hallett comes up with next. Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this in advance of publication, and what a book to end 2021’s reading with.

Hallett sprang to attention with her debut The Appeal in 2021, gracing Waterstone’s window displays and Sunday Times’ Crime Book of the Year… and, to be fair, it was a breath of fresh air in its take on the crime genre.

In this novel, her follow up, which she and Viper publishing graciously let me read as an ARC, she returns to the genre and to the ventriloquism she displayed in The Appeal. Rather than a series of emails and electronic messages, her device this time is a series of audio recordings – the premise is that Stevie Smith, recently released from prison and seeking to reunite with his son, has borrowed an old phone from him and that the recordings are for him. Having been put through a voice-to-text service, they are delivered to Stevie’s son complete with spelling errors and phonetic renderings of spoken words (Miss Iles is rendered as missiles) .

Stevie’s narrative is two-fold: on one hand it is the story of how he ended up in prison, and his involvement in criminal gang activities; on the other hand it is his investigation, after his release, into the disappearance of his Remedial English Teacher, Miss Iles decades before. This investigation is the first thrust of the narrative and propels us into a world where mysterious books are left on busses for boys to pick up; where coded messages inside the book reveal secrets; where conspiracy theories blossom like wildfire on the internet along with Nazi spies and incredible plot twists. All contained in the books of a discredited children’s writer, Edith Twyford. The theory is that there is a hidden treasure – variously posited as gold (reasonable) or time travel portals (possibly less plausible) – to which the clues lead. Had Miss Iles been eliminated by sinister forces as she got too close, all those years before? Were those forces still operating and a threat to Smithy now? Can Smithy follow the same clues and uncover the truth of what happened to his beloved teacher?

The novel initially felt a little disjointed to me: the gangland narrative when it came up felt shoe-horned in and an interruption to what felt like the main story; yet Smithy’s history and reasons for his being in prison was relevant to communicate to his estranged son whereas the investigation into Miss Iles’ disappearance was not. The harsh brutality of Smithy’s childhood and family – if we trust his account – and his inculcation into the gang culture felt at odds with the whimsy of the present-day narrative. Never quite dark enough to feel authentic, but bleak enough to jar with the quest for the Twyford Code.

Those strands did weave together however, very satisfyingly towards the end. Just as I was starting to question Smithy’s narration as it became increasingly extreme and stretched my credulity, Hallett gave one heck of a twist to it! I will not reveal any more of, except to say that it did lead to a re-evaluation of all that had gone before and, in hindsight, this was an incredibly carefully structured and clever book and not one detail was left to chance.

And far more importantly, it was a great read! I did miss some of the variety of voices Hallett gave us in The Appeal: the format here obviously centred on Smithy with occasional ‘guest’ voices. However, those guests were lovely, whether they were his former classmates Paul, Donna, Michelle, Nate or the very obliging librarian, Lucy, who helps him with his phone, his housing, his research and becomes embroiled in his quest.

The story does have (very deliberately) a classic feel of Enid Blyton in places: a plucky group of unlikely children – the remedial English class with mental health issue, anxiety, dyslexia – become embroiled in international intrigue and adventure, running about the countryside and finding secret passages… it just needed a dog called Timmy or a parrot called Kiki! And passages from Edith Twyford’s books are cited in the novel with exactly that Blyton-esque language! It was, initially and at a superficial level, a highly enjoyable romp; it twisted into something… else by the end. I’m not sure everyone will like the twist, but it worked for me. Perhaps it will be one of those marmite-things… that you either love or hate!

All in all, this was a fantastic read and a great follow-up to The Appeal – great for readers of Belinda Bauer and Richard Osman – and I look forward to whatever else Hallett writes next.


What I Liked

The clever, clever plotting and structure of the novel – which only became fully apparent towards the end when you can see the intricacies and some of the questionable moments start to make sense.

The camaraderie between the RE class: Paul, Donna, Michelle, Nate and Smithy who were treated as the failures and the rejects because they found reading challenging.

The fantastic pacing of the novel – it really was a page turner!

The character of Smithy who initially presented himself to us as bumblingly inept, but who may have been anything but that!

What Could Have Been Different

The interplay between the different narrative strands could have been smoother.

I found the phonetic speech-to-text format just a little gimmicky.

‘The Twyford Code’ is told uniquely through audio transcripts that have been deciphered from an iPhone 4 that was given to Steven Smith by his estranged son. Steven has a fairly miserable upbringing but has fond memories of his remedial English class with four classmates and Miss Isles. Miss Isles reads them books by Edith Twyford and one day takes them on a trip to her home. Except Miss Isles never comes back to school and Steven falls in with a bad crowd. Now middle-aged, having finished a long stretch in prison, Steven is determined to crack The Twyford Code and figure out what happened to Miss Isles.

This was absolutely phenomenal. A real labyrinth for the reader with so many twists and turns, there is so much more to this story than it first appears. I was so intrigued by the premise and as twists were revealed to us I got caught up entirely in it - I felt like one of those people on the chat rooms trying to crack the code! By the end my head was spinning trying to piece together everything and see the story from this newly revealed angle. A delightful trip!
Initially I was apprehensive about the fact it was audio transcripts and some words haven’t been deciphered properly by the software. (Example: must have = mustard) But honestly, after a few entries you barely notice it and it didn’t hinder my experience.
This is my second Janice Hallett book and I’ve devoured both of them! I love her unique approach to mysteries and although they are sizeable texts I’ve sat and read them both cover to cover. She is definitely a new favourite author and a refreshing addition to the genre! Can’t wait to see what she does next!

I received an E-ARC copy of ‘The Twyford Code’ by Janice Hallett through NetGalley when the publisher Viper Books approved my request. I loved The Appeal, so I was really excited to start reading.

This book follows Steven Smith, as he starts to re-build his life after being in prison for 11 years.

He is thinking a lot about his troubled past and where it all started to go wrong. He realises it was when his teacher Miss Isles took them on a school trip, but then went missing.

He can’t remember the events and when he starts to look into her disappearance comes to learn about a code in the books of Children’s author Edith Twyford.

Is there a code? If there is where does it lead?

Steven encourages other ex-school mates to help him investigate and when things become dangerous, he starts to wonder what he is uncovering.

Will he find out the reason for his teachers’ mysterious disappearance?

I love the way that this author writes her books. In this book she uses transcribed voice notes of the main character Steven Smith. It really makes it a different read and brings you in to be part of investigating the mystery.

I must admit, as it doesn’t really state the reason why these transcriptions are being investigated it did leave me a bit confused at first, but you just have to go with the flow and then you will work it out.

There is a section at the beginning that explains the errors in the transcription as sometimes it picks up words as something else due to the way the words are spoken. It doesn’t take long to be able to follow what you are reading though.

Overall, a slow building mystery that brings you into the investigation of the Twyford Code.

I thoroughly enjoyed Hallett’s first book “The Appeal”, and so given a chance to read “The Twyford code”, I was excited but apprehensive if it would live up to the first. I had to sit with my thoughts for a few days because, Hallett enjoys writing stories told in non-traditional ways of telling stories.

The Twyford Code is told via transcripts of voice recordings on his sons old iPhone 4 and is undoubtedly an original format. If I am honest this took me a considerable amount of time to get accustomed to (more so than the messages format in ‘The Appeal’) and weighed down my enjoyment of the book until I got the hang of it - in a similar way the almost barrier (the narrative being transcripts) I felt got in the way of the character development and whilst as a plot device, an unreliable narrated (can we trust what we read (hear) in the transcripts is no doubt meant to happen it did feel a bit flat. However the plot is interesting, following Steven Smith following an 11-year prison sentence; looking back on an event in his childhood - a fateful trip with Miss Isles and his remedial English class to Twyford’s (an author, akin in my mind to the likes of Blyton) house. The join Smithy on his journey, figuring out “The Twyford Code” and reconnect with people from his past - through the medium of voice recording to his probation officer and recorded phone calls.

This book is unique and once one has come to grips with how it is written, a page-turner. This is a must read for those who enjoy mysteries or original methods of storytelling - 4 stars.

Janice Hallett’s first novel, ‘The Appeal’ was definitely one of my favourite reads of 2021, and so I was delighted to able to read an ARC of her latest novel to review. This is an author who plays around with the format of the mystery genre - she has clearly had a lot of fun writing this one!

I’ll be honest in saying that I struggled to get into this book at first. As a teacher, I was interested in the classroom—based scenes, but then it all went awry very quickly and we were here, there and everywhere, in both geography and time. I struggled to follow the phonetic translation of voice files, and wondered where the plot was leading to, especially when it seemed to be going round in circles. If you find yourself in the same position though, I’d strongly advise you to stick with it - there is a point to everything, and it all comes together in the last part of the novel.

It is pretty difficult to say much more about this novel without giving it all away, but suffice to say that Janice Hallett is one very, very clever author. I didn’t solve the case before all was revealed at the end (no change there then!), but the ending to this novel provided twists upon twists upon twists, and finally got to a very satisfactory ending.

I look forward to reading more from Janice Hallett, and I can’t wait to see what she surprises us with next!

Unfortunately I was unable to get into this book. I did preserve to the end but found it very confusing. I still haven't made out the ending and I got mixed up in characters.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an Arc in exchange for an honest opinion