A humongous thank you to @Atria for the ARC! Janice Hallett is my favorite mystery author, and I wholeheartedly agree with the endorsement of her as this generation’s Agatha Christie.

The epistolary style of her novels allow her to brilliantly weave a masterful tale that enthralls the reader and paints vivid characters, settings and timelines. The reader infers a bit here, and that is by design. With The Examiner, I picked my jaw up off the floor when the twists occurred - they were both spellbinding and somehow right in front of me all along. This is truly a feat, in my option. It’s rare that twists in a book are so satisfying as to be both unpredictable and perfectly in line with the story beats/plot. I really can’t say much more because this isn’t just a great read: it’s an experience. The blurb sets the stage, but you’ll never guess what’s to come in the best way possible.

If you haven’t figured it out, I absolutely loved this book. This is by far one of the best books I’ve read all year and maybe ever. Certainly my new favorite by Janice Hallett (although it’s hard to pick a favorite among such gems). For my romance readers, Janice Hallett is the Emily Henry of mystery! Janice Hallett’s books are remarkable and should be added to your TBRs if you haven’t already. You won’t regret it.

As a big fan of Hallett's previous books, I was delighted to get the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. I've always loved epistolary novels, and this one is mostly in the form of message board postings in a Master's art program. I loved the way the author skewered academic life from grading to teamwork to political correctness and more. When there are shocking revelations, readers will have to reevaluate previous events in a new light. There were many twists and turns, and I never would have imagined what happened. I highly recommend this book.

This was a very interesting book! I’m a huge fan of Janice Halley’s writing style. I find it super easy to read and totally addicting. The Examiner completely shocked me in the direction the story took. I want to keep this spoiler free so I will only say that I did not see any of the ending coming. As the reveals were unfolding, I felt it was a little bit much of a stretch and found it a bit hard to grasp.

Look, I would say I am a superfan of Janice Hallett's. I will read anything she writes. I love playing detective alongside her characters. So it really, really pains me to give this a 2 star review, but this was a miss for me.

I was sooo excited about the premise of this novel: a chaotic art graduate course set at a school in London culminating in a murder, but you spend the book trying to figure out - who is dead (if anyone actually is)? How? Why? Anyone who knows me knows that I love a campus novel, so I was pumped for this. However, it fell short of my expectations.

My main gripe is the overly detailed focus on art. While I appreciate depth, the meticulous descriptions of multimedia art projects overshadowed the core mystery. This imbalance made the pacing sluggish. Hallett’s previous works masterfully balanced detail with action, but "The Examiner" spends too much time in the minutae and not enough on the unraveling of the mystery.

Another disappointment, while avoiding spoilers, is that this is the first of Hallett's novels where I felt like the readers couldn't play along. That's the fun of Hallett's work for me, and that element was really diminished here.

Overall, I am still a huge fan of Hallett, and will absolutely continue to read anything she writes. I remain hopeful her next book will recapture what I love so much about her work.

Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Janice Hallett for the review copy in exchange for my honest review.

"The Examiner" by Janice Hallett is categorized as a cozy mystery, although personally, it doesn't align with my preferred genre of novels. The pace of the story is rather slow, which may not be to everyone's liking. The narrative revolves around a group of six students who have been carefully selected by their teacher for a masters program in art. What makes this book unique is that the entire story is conveyed through emails, texts, assignments, and essays. Unfortunately, I didn't find myself particularly drawn to any of the characters, and I felt that the plot and its twists didn't seamlessly come together. However, I've given it a three-star rating as it's possible that my lack of enthusiasm stems from the fact that cozy mysteries aren't my cup of tea.

Thank you to Net Galley for ARC to read and review.

Super interesting book with twists and turns. I kept turning the pages because I wanted to know what was going to happen. Definitely would recommend if you like this sort of thing.

This was a really fun read, with memorable characters and interesting twists. It was easy to follow for the most part, though the end did get a bit jumbled for me. Still, it was an inventive mystery with interesting character development.

End of term has finally arrived for six students enrolled in the inaugural MA course at Royal Hastings. But when the external examiner arrives to review their end of year coursework, it seems as though something very, very wrong happened during the year. Something like, perhaps, murder?

Janice Hallett is the absolute master/monarch of the epistolary novel! I don’t know how she manages to keep the style of her novels so fresh, her characters well developed, and her mysteries so taut with every single book. The Examiner is another masterpiece in this genre. The characters have such personalities, the plot is intriguing, and…I may have shrieked three times while reading.

The Examiner releases on September 9, 2024. But if you haven’t read any of her works, there’s plenty of time to catch up before September! I highly recommend all of her novels.

Thank you to @atriabooks and @netgalley for the advanced e-book.

A kind of a cozy thriller, if that makes sense. Six diverse students are part of a new art master’s program but things go weirdly wrong amidst the standard types of exercises mixed with a “real world” final project installation at a local tech company. The entire book is composed of emails, text messages, online assignments, essays, and assessments, giving the book a kind of forensic feel as events (and the ensuing panic) are slowly revealed. No dialog, no internal ponderings, no real time action.

Unfortunately, this is not my kind of book. It’s very slow paced and is largely composed of “filler” with way too much detail on the arts program (not the art) and interacting with the tech company. It was repetitive, full of bureaucracy, and that particularly irritating mode of interacting with others which is false in every possible way. By the second half of the book there were some big twists and surprises, but honestly they didn’t pass my “not stupid” test. I can deal with “stupid” in my plots if the book is very funny or the characters so interesting that I get to think about how they would react in these improbable situations, but this book is not funny and the characters are not depicted in depth. They aren’t even likable. Perhaps I’m lucky in that I never had a work environment (or school environment) that was populated by such unpleasant and incompetent people! Most of them seemed like absolute prats (British slang for someone who is foolish or stupid, or has little ability — this is a British book, after all!).

There was one good line: “That’s something they don’t tell you about teamwork. It can normalize the horrific.” Never thought about teamwork that way but I get it.

This is my first Janice Hallett book and I know she is popular. I can see that some people would enjoy the text based story, the crazy activists, the shallow and negative depiction of corporations and academic institutions that we can all rally around and groan about but … not for me.

I actually genuinely had a hard time articulating how much I love this book. From the first page to the end of the author’s note.

While I love every single one of Janice Hallett’s books, this one takes the cake for me. I’ve said it before (and I’ll say it anytime I talk about her writing) but Janice’s books are so much more than stories, they are true experiences. Like the literary equivalent of an escape room.

The Examiner feels like a culmination of the best parts of The Appeal, The Twyford Code, and The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. Especially the goosebump inducing twists and mind-blowing revelations. Janice Hallett is a mastermind. The plot, the characters, the twists… all absolutely unique perfection.

"I thought this was really well written and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future. I think it will find readers at our library, so we will definitely be purchasing for the collection.

The Multimedia Art master’s degree course at Royal Hastings University may be losing its funding. In order to save it head Gela Nathaniel must find the perfect mix of students for the year.

Lucy’s is a single mother and a graphic designer. She needs to make more money quickly. Jonathan’s only experience is running the gallery his family owns; he’s never been an artist himself. Cameron is a marketing executive looking for a change. Jem is a sculptor who will stop at nothing to get ahead. Patrick runs an art supply store and doesn’t know a thing about running design software. Alyson is already a successful artist and seems overqualified for the program.

Then there’s the examiner who is an outsider, hired to judge to students’ performance in the big group project, an art installation for a cloud based company. But everyone has secrets.

I love that the story is told through texts, e-mails and essays. So appropriate for a book about a multimedia art course, although can I just say that I’m no artist, but their end project sounds TERRIBLE. I hope it looks better than it sounds, otherwise they should all fail.

There is one very clever twist which I loved, and most of the book is quite enjoyable, albeit a little long, and I didn’t feel the overall mystery held up so much. But getting there was fun!