Janice Hallett has the most incredible mind - I don't understand how she comes up with such clever, well crafted mysteries. I was completely enthralled from Page 1!

Thank you to the publisher for providing a review copy

This was a fun read! A lot to take in here.

The story is told through messages, emails, and assignments sent by students of an art degree and the people around them. While reviewing course documents for grading at the end of the degree, the examiner believes he has discovered that one of the students has disappeared, and the others are covering it up. It's a fun format, but it's also a lot of content to get through, much longer than your typical suspense novel.

There were times when I thought, these people are not acting like human beings...and then I realized I probably know someone similar to every character. This class is full of that annoying coworker you sit near or that relentless overachiever you went to school with. There are times when you may need to suspend your disbelief, but it's not that serious and would make for a great beach or rainy day read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I’m not quite a Janice Hallett completist with one book left to read, but I think it’s safe to say that this is her most banana-pants one yet. In the best way, of course.The premise is simple: six students begin a course at a prestigious university for a Multimedia Arts degree. By the end of the course, one student is dead… or missing… or perfectly fine? Maybe not so simple.

This book has several strengths and a couple of weaknesses. The pros: it’s definitely a page-turner. Janice Hallett is a master of mixed media format and uses it to build suspense in a way most authors wouldn’t be able to handle. It’s also well-researched, delving into some… let’s call it ‘interesting’ territory. (When you know, you can’t unknow.) Finally, her characterization is excellent. Who are the ‘good guys’ and who are the ‘bad guys’? I’m still only about eight-five percent sure, but I know each of the main characters well.

Now the cons: while the book was carefully plotted, the author made it just a little too complicated and the story got bogged down about two-thirds of the way through. Also, she should’ve started revealing snippets of the characters’ back stories sooner. The ending was a bit of an information dump, with too much to process in too short a time, which took away from the suspense that she had so carefully built. Obviously, holding back certain things was integral to the story, but concealing as much as she did canceled out much of the shock value the author was aiming for by revealing these details at the last.

These were by no means deal-breakers and The Examiner was a fun, if not perfect, ride. I rate it 3.75 stars and highly recommend it.

Thank you Atria Books for the gifted digital ARC!

Janice Hallett is a master of mixed media storytelling. I absolutely love how every time you read one of her novels you, the reader, are invited to try to solve the mystery. It's such a fun and unique reading experience.

There were some big twists in this one that I didn't see coming, and kudos to Hallett for such a clever reveal that really made everything click into place. It would be interesting to re-read this knowing that vital piece of information. Sorry that is so vague but, alas, it's a huge spoiler!

I definitely cannot wait to see what Hallett comes up with next! The Examiner is out in the US on September 10.

I'm not sure this book was for me. However, I think it will hit with a lot of people. If you love complex mysteries that invite the reader to play detective, it's for you. You'll love it if you love novels told in emails, transcripts, and texts.

I feel a bit conflicted with this one. The way Hallett writes her stories are incredible and creative. Also, it's the best option for me to get out of a reading slump.

The sad thing is... I was disappointed. I did not enjoy the background for the characters that connected to the "mystery" of this story. I tend to love academia vibes in mystery but this one didn't work much for me.

I do believe it'll be a well reviewed book. It was just wrong for me, specially after reading the Alperton Angels one (which was a favorite).

This story is told all in emails, texts and essays. It can be very annoying to read as there are no descriptions of people and emotions are unreadable in this type of storytelling. But you can still very much dislike characters through their chat rooms! Six students are doing a master’s program that crosses art with marketing. The students are all very different, with 5 of them being “mature” students. Of course, art projects are not the heart of this book, but what else is really going on? Is one, or two, of the students missing, or dead? Why is Jen so annoying? Does Ludya really have so many personal issues? Whose voice is on the radio? Does Gela, the head of the program, really ever do anything? It’s a frustrating book, with great twists and double twists, and annoyingly unputdownable.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this DRC.
#TheExaminer #NetGalley

I *loved* this book.
I have enjoyed other books by the author, I really like the format of stories told through documents/correspondence, but this was by far the best. I've just finished it and I feel like starting over from the beginning, to see how it all looks knowing the twists and turns.
This was fascinating and engaging and the pacing was perfect.

I’ve really come to enjoy how this author tells a story. The Examiner tells is about a group of students enrolled in a multimedia art course. A very eclectic mix was chosen to participate, and through emails and texts, we will discover why.
We know that something happened early on, and I did not expect it to be anything good. As the story progressed, I realized everything I thought I knew was incorrect. An enjoyable mystery if you like this style of writing.

I have loved every book that Janice Hallett has written and this book is no exception. The writing is crisp, the clues are clever, and the topic is sensational. I am sad that the book ended and I have to wait another year or more to read her other work. This book also taught me about what an art program looks like and different mediums of art. Wowow!

I always love Hallett’s writing and this is no exception. While the end felt a bit far fetched the fun twists and messy characters felt real and fun to read! Always a pleasure to see how she weaves the story together.

I am enjoying this book so much! Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author. All opinions are my own.

Thanks to Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

If you've been looking at my Goodreads at all you've probably noticed I'm on a Hallett kick— I've scurried through reading most of her stuff over the last week or so, so getting to read this before it came out was a little treat.

In all honesty, I still think I love The Appeal more. It still feels like the strongest of her books from what I've read. That being said, this was a delight. She's got a way of writing reveals that make past discrepancies slot into place so beautifully and leave me pacing around the house. I think the main issue for me was the limited scope of the epistolary writing, compared to The Appeal, but also I get why the choices made were made. This is probably closer to a 4.5 in rating, but it didn't take me over in the way that book did, so that's why I'm putting it there.

Anyway, as someone who did a one years masters in the UK and felt a little insane by the end of it, this hit home while being a delightful mystery. I am still pacing around the house because of parts of it! A perfect little beach read imo.

Janice Hallett has definitely solidified herself as a top thriller author for me! I love her style of writing and how she uses mixed media to tell her stories. While they are often a little too far fetched to be believable in real life, I know that going in and still find them super entertaining despite that.

The Examiner lived up to that expectation, and it was a fast-paced, fun read! I love trying to determine what happened as we went, and there were a few twists that I didn't see coming at all. I enjoyed how flawed the characters were and how my initial impressions of them wildly changed as the story went.

It was quite heavy on the art aspect, which was interesting, but it did take me out of the story a bit at times trying to decipher the lingo. I still really enjoyed the book, though, and would definitely recommend it!

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion!

There is no one who writes like Janice Hallet. I don't have a clue how she keeps building ingenious stories using documentary evidence as opposed to traditional narratives, but I've read all her books and will keep doing so as long as she writes them.

This one is about a master art course and the six students in it. I myself have an arts degree so it was a fun setting for me. Hallett's books are a masterclass in with holding information, manipulation and misdirection. As the reader, you know something isn't right and that the story is building to explain what that is, but for the longest time you just have to be on the ride to find out what is going on. (One criticism, these books can be a lot and I wish this one had been maybe 50 pages shorter.)

I don't want to get into spoiler territory, but even as some pieces fall into place more questions arise. Eventually certain details come to light which cast everything you previously read in a different light. And remarkably, on character who I would obnoxious, I ultimately developed affection for.

I think it's hard to top The Appeal which was the first book I read by the author, but this one was very good and I plowed through it because I was so intrigued and wanted to see if the resolution would be satisfying. It was.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC!

I’ve been a huge fan of Janice Hallett ever since I picked up The Twyford Code by chance at a Waterstones. Since then, I’ve ordered her books for international delivery all the way to my home in Canada just so I could read them as soon as possible without waiting for the North American release – and I much prefer the UK cover designs to the NA ones. So, when I got the chance to review The Examiner through Netgalley, I was very excited! I’ve been highly anticipating this book for what feels like forever.

That said, this book was both the exact type of mysterious intrigue and excitement that I expect from Hallett (I devoured it in about three days!) while also feeling a bit too much like a re-do of The Appeal (and The Christmas Appeal, actually).

I really enjoyed the setting of the professional MA, as it rang very true to my experience taking an MA in Publishing – except for the murder and intrigue. But the types of assignments and the occasional personality clash on group projects was very relatable. Even the fact that everyone comes from very different backgrounds, with people who are changing careers, balancing full time jobs, and are mature students (that would technically apply to myself, even) was very true to this sort of MA course.

I thought that the mystery was well constructed, and the timing of the reveals was very clever. Hallett’s books almost always hinge on a late-book reveal that changes the way you look at the entire book, one that you almost couldn’t possibly predict, and this one had a few of those. The true nature of all the characters’ motivations to be on the course, character details, and the bait and switch of various characters' identities all kept you along thinking ‘surely, this is the last thing’. Personally, I don’t think it was too much, but I can also see that perspective.

What was a little disappointing for me (I’m still giving this 3.5/4 stars, so not that disappointing) was that it felt very reminiscent of The Appeal in terms of character dynamics and even setting (what is Academia if not a small town?) and two main plot details. I don’t think that took away from my enjoyment, but I’ll likely recommend this book to people instead of The Appeal from now on, as I felt that this book executed some of those ideas and themes a lot more effectively. And maybe that was the intention – God knows I’ve written something and wished I could just ‘do it again, but better’, and that’s what this felt like. I may even amend my star rating one day, when I haven’t just finished the book after reading furiously until 1 a.m., to reflect my feelings on this book more specifically than the way I felt about it in relation to her prior work. And on that day, it will probably be made a 5 star read.

Janice Hallett has been an author I'd long adored, ever since The Appeal. Spinning yet another tale using multimedia (emails, text messages, reports), The Examiner is a wild ride from start to finish. But the reason why it's a three star for me is that the ending and the plot twist wasn't really that satisfying-=it got a bit convoluted.

Told through text message, emails and slack type messages, The Examiner follows 6 Masters students as they work together on several projects to complete their course. When one student goes missing, the others are curious and ultimately begin to worry there is something more sinister going on in the class. The Examiners read through the messages as they try to determine what happened.

I really enjoyed this book! Janice Hallett is always a fun read!

This was an interesting story that I didn’t quite expect. I figured it would be dry reading but it was engaging and had me sucked into the plot. It was multi-layered and very creative. I liked the format once I got used to it. Very creative and great book!

This one was a fun time. I love epistolary novels, and this was no exception. I had a great time uncovering the mysteries with the characters, and finding out their secrets. There was a lot of intentional twists at the end, so much so that it was a bit whiplash-y but altogether I would recommend this one, especially folks who love a school-based plot.