I love the epistolary format of books and Janice Hallett is very gifted at writing this way. I loved The Appeal and was thrilled to pick up The Twyford Code. Unfortunately, the plot of this one didn't interest me as much as The Appeal did. The story is a "book within a book" mystery that takes the reader down many roads and paths to find out the answer to the "Twyford Code". This book was the type that requires attention and can be confusing at times. I don't usually gravitate towards cerebral reads, (I prefer the mindless ones) so this wasn't in my wheelhouse. I think this book would be loved by readers who enjoy puzzles and taking apart details and facts. I'm looking forward to her next book!

I voluntarily reviewed this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

"The Twyford Code" by Janice Hallett is a gripping and unique novel that masterfully blends mystery, nostalgia, and the power of storytelling. The story revolves around Steven "Smithy" Smith, who stumbles upon a cryptic children's book by the disgraced author Edith Twyford. The discovery of strange markings and annotations in the book sets the stage for an intriguing and long-standing mystery.

Hallett's storytelling is both immersive and inventive. The use of voice recordings on an old iPhone as a narrative device adds a modern twist to the story, allowing us to experience Smithy's journey as he revisits his past and investigates the enigmatic Twyford Code. The alternating timelines keep the reader engaged, gradually unraveling the layers of the mystery.

The characters in the novel are well-crafted, and Smithy's determination to uncover the truth is palpable. The author skillfully builds an atmosphere of curiosity and suspense that kept me eagerly turning the pages. As the mystery deepens, the novel explores themes of childhood nostalgia, the power of literature, and the impact of secrets on our lives.

What sets "The Twyford Code" apart is its ability to blend a sense of wonder with a sense of unease. Janice Hallett has crafted a story that keeps you guessing until the very end, with unexpected twists and revelations that make it a truly compelling read.

Hallett knocks it out of the park again. Her books are a particular kind of mystery, less a novel than a challenge. It’s a collection of notes and “primary source” evidence. The challenge is to both follow along with the story and use all of the disparate evidence to solve the mystery. I can see this not being for everyone, but if you like this type of book it’s fantastic.

Unfortunately, I didn't love this. The style of writing was oftentimes hard to read and I found the mystery to be disappointing.

I read Janice Hallett’s book The Appeal and reviewed it on this Blog on March 3, 2022. You can read the review for The Appeal here.

This book is much like Hallett’s other book The Appeal in that it is an epistolary novel. In The Appeal, it was written by letters, emails, and text messages. In this book, the story is told through transcripts of recordings mainly recorded by the main character on his son’s old iPhone. Steven Smith, known as “Smithy” to all his friends, has just been released from serving his prison sentence for his involvement in a heist. During his stint in prison, he learned how to read and spent much time thinking about the mysterious disappearance of his childhood remedial English teacher.

Upon his release, he is determined to contact his childhood classmates to learn exactly what happened to Miss Isles on that fateful day. It appears that his memories from that time and everyone else’s memories are vastly different. Determined to find out what happened to the missing Miss Isles and learn more about the book she was determined contained a secret code by the author, Edith Twyford, Smithy must sift through his broken memories and try to figure out what happened all those years ago.

This book lacked the suspense and the connection with the characters that The Appeal had. This book wasn’t terrible and it was a little hard to follow along with at times, because of the way the recordings were transcribed in the book. I felt that I didn’t really connect with the main character in this book and that the storyline was a little fractured. Nonetheless, I love Hallett’s continuation of writing books that are epistolary in nature because they bring a fresh new writing style to the table.

Overall Rating: 2.5 stars
Author: Janice Hallett

Series: N/A

Publisher: Atria Books

Publication Date: January 24, 2023

Pages: 333

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Get It: Amazon

Disclaimer: This book was given to me by the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review. I reviewed this book without compensation of any kind. All thoughts and opinions are solely mine.

I love this book. The mystery is elegant, the twists are never ending, and the format of telling the story via voice recording was brilliant.

My new favorite mystery author!

I really enjoyed the Appeal earlier last year so I was excited to see this. I think that Janice Hallett is doing some really interesting, provocative things in a genre that is incredibly appealing to the public right now, so I'm definitely going to continue to keep an eye on what she's up to. I especially love the mixed media aspect of her work. There aren't enough books that incorporate that and it's just so fun and engaging.

Unlike The Appeal, this one is told in a series of audio recordings. We learn about Steven Smith, who was recently let out of prison and is searching for a teacher that went missing when he was in high school, who once talked about a code in a series of children's books about potentially some spy shit and gold?

For ME, the payoff was not worth the investment. I found the plotting needlessly confusing and misleading for the sake of the big twist, which happens in basically the last 5% of the book and is essentially designed to make you re-read the book. I don't want to HAVE TO read a book twice to understand it.

Pub date: 1/24/23
Genre: mystery
Quick summary: Edith Twyford wrote popular children's books - but Smithy and his childhood teacher Miss Iles believed there was a code running through her work. Years later, all that remains are Smithy's voice memos - can the reader solve the mystery?

Like Hallett's previous novel THE APPEAL, this book is told in an unorthodox format - the voice memos. These memos have been "transcribed" using auto-software, so there are numerous mistakes throughout (the most common being missiles instead of Miss Iles).

Because there's a lot to keep track of, this is a book that begs to be read in large sections rather than a little bit at a time. I think you also have to accept that you'll be lost at points (I was), but the ending tied everything together and made things clear. I was really impressed by how it all wrapped up in the end.

Readers who like puzzles should give this one a try! If you're not willing to commit to this complex kind of book, I still recommend THE APPEAL, as it's a little easier on the brain!

Thank you to Atria Books for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for e-ARC of the book.

Steven Smith aka "Smithy" had a rough childhood and youth. When he got out of prison he decides to reconnect with his son. Unfortunately his son grew up with a different father and doesn't want to have a relationship with Steven. As Steven finds himself alone when he decided to record his thoughts and memories on old iPhone that he got from his son. As Steven goes back into his memories he tells about mysterious disappearance of his remedial English teacher Miss Iles as well as his criminal past. Now he is determined to find his teacher by talking to his classmates and following the clues.

I enjoyed the style of this book even though some parts were hard for me to understand as non-native English speaker. Some words I had to say out loud as I couldn't understand the transcribed version. I liked characters and puzzles they were solving. It was a wonderful book with a beautiful message and several nice surprises.

this had a really slow start and honestly i considered not finishing it somewhere around 30%, but I’m glad i did! it finally started to pick up about half way through. the concept was interesting and well executed. the format did throw me off a bit with the transcript codes and i found myself flipping back to the decipher key often which was distracting at times. it was a bit hard to follow all the different voices & recordings and i found myself questioning things often, but it all came together nicely in the end and that actually felt purposeful once it was all tied together.

this is a great book for people who love mysteries with lots of clues and puzzles. the ending was unexpected and i loved the extra code left for the readers at the end.

The Twyford Code is an exceptional entry to the mystery genre. Janice Hallett has found ways to tip the tropes and old ways of writing mysteries on their head. I suggest you read both this latest book and her prior one, The Appeal.

The Twyford Code starts out with a letter from a police inspector to an academic professor asking him to review the transcripts of audio files found on an old iPhone. From there, the story follows the narrator of the audio files, Steve Smith, as he just got out of prison and is trying to reconnect with a group of old friends. He wants to once and for all find out what happened to their old teacher, as she disappeared on a field trip with them in high school.

There is so much packed into this book! The technology and well-thought-out twists are impressive! Highly recommend for mystery fans, especially if you like the Thursday Murder Club series.

This book was so unique! I love books involving codes and puzzles and this book was full of intricate and multi-layered codes and surprises. There were so many twists that I happily did not figure out. It isn’t often that I read a book and think, “I did not see that coming”! The Twyford Code had me thinking that more than once. Terrific read!

I think what doesn't work for me with this book is, oddly enough, it writing. The format of this book just made it so I didn't connect with it. The voice notes weren't for me. Especially because I felt like we got off track so many times. Of course, by the end we do understand the purpose of it, but while reading I just kind of felt like skimming because it took me out of the part of the story I cared about more so. I'm glad I didn't though, because like I said, it serves a purpose. I just think the story felt a bit dragged out throughout. So there were moments were I was REALLY invested, and other moments were I just completely wasn't it. I also just don't think the reveal made up for that. I mean, it was a clevver reveal, and it made everything make sense. However, I also thought it was a bit dissapointing. I expected a bit more from it. I can say though that I am looking forward to reading more from Janice Hallett, because honestly the concept of this book was great, even the execution was decent. I just didn't connect to the format (aka the voice memos).

3.5 stars

The buildup is slow and at times not all that enjoyable, but man is the payoff cool.

I was sold on this book as a mixed-media mystery, but really there’s only one media: transcriptions of audio recordings. I spent the first 20-ish percent of this book waiting for other media (letters, emails, old documents, photos) to pop in before I realized that this was going to be the whole book. So, fair warning to anyone else who had this misapprehension: this is a book told through transcribed audio recordings. While I suspect the meat of the book may be more enjoyable to listen to via audiobook, I would still recommend getting the physical book for word puzzle purposes.

The story is the self-recorded adventure of a man recently released from prison, Smithy, who decides to investigate an incident from his childhood: the disappearance of his teacher, Miss Isles, which he suspects had something to do with a reported secret code or treasure hunt hidden in books by a famous children’s author, Edith Twyford. Smithy investigates the disappearance and the purported Twyford Code himself, revealing along the way various secrets from his own past.

I think the ultimate construction of the book is really clever, and the last few chapters zipped along as I joyfully put all the pieces together. But the first 60% or so was honestly kind of a slog. If slow burns aren’t your thing, this book may not be for you; but if you love puzzles, family reconnecting stories, and are okay with the occasional narrative cliché (which may or may not be later shown to be not quite what it seems), this is a modern treasure hunt worth the time it takes to lay things out.

The Twyford Code is an odd standalone literary mystery full of wordplay and misdirection written by Janice Hallett. Released 24th Jan 2023 by Simon & Schuster on their Atria imprint, it's 336 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out from the same publisher in mid-third quarter 2023. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

The pacing here is very very odd. The first third of the book is a mish-mash of transcribed audio files, interviews, and snippets. It seems to get under its own feet and it's not before about a third of the way through that the narrative sorts itself out and seems to become more linear and readable. The author is both experienced and prolific, so it's clearly a completely intentional choice, but seems to be of limited effectiveness in this case.

The mystery is very well constructed; a very cold case disappearance, a literary mystery and a treasure hunt wrapped in one. The setup of the puzzle, the painstaking clue-gathering, the climax and denouement, are all satisfying but off-kilter throughout.

Four stars. A pleasantly confusing and intellectual puzzle. It's quite cleverly constructed and worth the effort to get to the solution.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Twyford Code by Janice Hallet, I found the story so weak and the characters so unlikable that I ultimately did not finish the book. A third round pick for most libraries.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Twyford Code by Janice Hallet. The first word that comes to mind when I think of this book is, ‘odd.’ This story follows a a boy who comes across a book by a disgraced author. The book has odd writings throughout, when he shows it to his teacher, she tells him she thinks it’s part of a code written by the author. Later, his teacher disappears, which convinces him she was right. Many years later, the boy, now a man is being released from prison. He decides to revisit this mystery from his childhood. Overall this storyline fell sort of flat for me. I really wanted to love it, but I just didn’t. It felt a little ‘all over the place.’

DNF @ 15%. Lost my interest in the small amount of plot there was and hard to read in its disjointed albeit unique formatting. Might go back and try to read again in the future or rent an audiobook version to get through it.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

This was a very anticipated read for me, and it did not disappoint! I love Janice Hallett after reading The Appeal, and The Twyford Code takes it up another notch! A twisty and turny read that sends you down a million wrong turns and red herrings before leaving you so incredibly satisfied and yet emotional, The Twyford Code was a five-star read for me. I highly recommend this book as an audiobook, as the book is written in typed voice recordings, and listening to it along with reading it made the experience more immersive! Loved it!

An intriguing mystery that keeps you guessing throughout the book. The characters are well written and converse naturally.