I'm back with another holiday book, but it's much more than that. It's a combo of some of my favorite things: quirky English characters, a mystery and an unusual format. This book demands to be read while drinking tea and eating biscuits(the English kind, not the southern United States kind). But, if you don't want to dampen your holiday mood with a possible murder, wait for next week's holiday book.
More About The Christmas Appeal
This immersive holiday caper from the “modern Agatha Christie” (The Sunday Times, London) follows the hilarious Fairway Players theater group as they put on a Christmas play—and solve a murder that threatens their production.
The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of Jack and the Beanstalk to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes.
Of course, there’s also the matter of the dead body onstage. Who could possibly have had the victim on their naughty list? Join lawyers Femi and Charlotte as they investigate Christmas letters, examine emails, and pore over police transcripts to identify both the victim and killer before the curtain closes on their holiday production—for good.
More About Janice Hallett
Janice Hallett is a former magazine editor, award-winning journalist, and government
communications writer. She wrote articles and speeches for, among others, the Cabinet Office, Home Office, and Department for International Development. Her enthusiasm for travel has taken her around the world several times, from Madagascar to the Galapagos, Guatemala to Zimbabwe, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. A playwright and screenwriter, she penned the feminist Shakespearean stage comedy NetherBard and cowrote the feature film Retreat. She lives in London and is the author of The Examiner, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, The Appeal, The Christmas Appeal, and The Twyford Code.
Thoughts on The Christmas Appeal
All the people in this book are what I like to call difficult. They aren't evil or bad but they do like to stir the pot. And face it, sometimes that makes life more interesting. Because no one is truly evil, just a little difficult, clueless, distracted and gossipy this book feels like it could take place in your neighborhood.
Half the fun is in piecing together what exactly happened (so many things happened!) from the emails, texts and other communications a retired investigator sends to two lawyers who dabble in unraveling mysteries (I must read their debut in The Appeal - the events of that book are eluded to in The Christmas Appeal but you can muddle along without having read it ). Readers are even privy to amateur sleuths texts to each other as they mull things over. So, it's an unusual format but that makes it fun. Author Janice Hallett manages to reveal so much about the characters simply by what they say (and don't say) to each other.
Take a break from the happily-ever-afters of most holiday themed books for this peek behind the scenes of a local community theater and all the egos, secrets and craziness that accompanies it. This book made me want to grab The Appeal just so I could enjoy these delightfully difficult people again.
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