I enjoy the correspondence style this author uses in her whodunit books! This one was OK for me. It felt a bit long and it took effort to keep the characters, timelines, and plot threads straight. It did keep my attention though and the ending wrapped up nicely, so I’m going to round up to 4 stars.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is my first book by this author but I am sad to sad it was a DNF for me. The story is told through email and text of a group of masters art students doing a project for a corporation. I am about 33% through and honestly it feels way too much like work. I cannot connect with these characters and I have too many other books I want to read to waste any more time here. Nothing but project descriptions and I do not feel drawn in to the story, more like a chore. I am at the part where there is some mysterious machine and unfortunately I have to nope out right here. Maybe I will try another in the future. Her covers are great!

Whilst I've read and liked this authors other books I really didn't like this one.

I felt it could of been shorter, it's just dragged. None of the characters where particularly likeable.

The book is mixed media which I normally love and really enjoy but this one really fell short. I don't think I would recommend it and I'm intrigued to see what others think when they read it

Janice Hallett will always be the Queen of epistolary writing as far as I am concerned. She has it down to a science and as. always her books are a fun, change of pace. With an epistolary story, especially a mystery, you have to follow along and pay close attention to all details so you don't miss out on any detail which completes the story but that is where I may have struggled a little with The Examiner. We are meant to read along the notes, essays and communications between the students of a multimedia art course at Royal Hastings. I have to be honest and say I am not a huge fan of art so in my opinion there seemed to be some repetitiveness in describing some of the art mediums and what each student was working on and why. It was still a fun book to read and I tried my best to solve this one but there were many crazy twists and I mean crazy. If I could I would say a solid 3.5 (I wish there were 1/2 stars :) )

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for my honest and true review.

The Examiner explores the disturbing and explosive nature of academia and different personalities meshing and clashing. Told through essays, assignment reviews, texts messages and emails, this multimedia story was extremely detailed and fascinating to watch unravel.

I really enjoyed my time diving into this complex web of academics, human psychology and individual motives. We follow a small cast of characters as they begin their fall term of an Art MA program, and follow them across their academic year, getting to see the various assignments they complete, and ultimately how a small pebble early on can cause a complete collapse of a system by the end.

Janice Hallett yet again creates an atmospheric, unsettling and twisty mystery that will keep you engaged and glued to the pages late into the night, guessing at what could possibly happen next at any given time.

I had a really enjoyable time reading this, and having had a similar MA experience with a small and occasional close-knit cohort, this felt like a very authentic look at human psychology when you force very different people to work together and play along.

My only gripes with this story was the amount of time it took me to remember all of the characters. Cameron frequently got mixed up with Jonathan in my head, and it took me close to the 20% mark to finally get enough information to start setting them apart.

Additionally, by the 40% mark, we were essentially done with the academic year, and I felt like the book should start wrapping up soon, but there was still 60% more of the book to go. The pacing felt a bit strange between the first and latter half of the book, but once things began to unravel, the latter half flew by and was hard to put down.

Many thanks to Atria and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for my honest review.

The Examiner is another twisty, clever, perfect mystery from Janice Hallet! As a fan of Hallet's previous works, I was so excited to dive into The Examiner and it did not disappoint! The story was well-paced, entirely engrossing, and kept me on the edge of my seat. The clever plotting and well-executed reveals (especially the final one!) were so well crafted. This whole book is so well done, I recommend it to all mystery fans.

Janice Hallett is such an interesting crime writer but at the risk of sounding patronizing, I do wonder if her success has led her to churn books out too quickly because this was not up to the standard of her others. It's a bit of an odd set up where some external examiners are reading the messages of students on an art college course, and also suspect the students have killed someone on the course and covered it up. That is mentioned at the beginning so the "mystery" is working out who was killed and what happened. Quite why the examiners are asking another examiner to figure this out by reading the messages, rather than going to the police, is never explained- unless I missed it.

There are many, many characters to keep straight and some of them feel like they are cliched or stereotyped so the reader will remember who they are. The worst thing is that none of the motivations make sense and I simply couldn't imagine the situations in the book ever happening in the real world. There's a gadget that doesn't make sense either and the solution the characters come up with for it is completely mad (trying to avoid spoilers here!!) I will read other books by Janice Hallett but I think whatever this was aiming for didn't really work.

Another great one by Janice Hallett. There are twists around every corner. Such a fun way to read a mystery. Once you read this, you'll want to read the rest of her books! So much fun!

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!