Book Review: ‘The Twyford Code’ by Janice Hallett

Let me get this out here first: I loved Janice Hallett’s debut novel, ‘The Appeal’. Everything about it was fantastic, from the modern epistolary style to the brilliantly relatable setting of a small-town amateur dramatics society. The characters were immediately recognisable types and the plot was unpredictable in all the best ways. Cosy, witty and so clever – I absolutely gulped it down and put ‘The Twyford Code’ at the top of my most anticipated books of 2022.

Thanks to NetGalley and Viper for my advance copy of this book, to be released in January 2022.

This book uses transcripts of messages recorded by the main protagonist, Steven Smith. He is a man with a shady past who is working to solve a mystery that has haunted him since his schooldays when his teacher, Miss Iles, disappeared on a school trip. The key to uncovering the truth seems to lie with his remedial English class and a children’s novel by now-disgraced writer Edith Twyford that holds a code. As Steven visits the people and places from his past, it becomes obvious that the Twyford Code is bigger than he could have imagined…

There was so much about this book that I loved, particularly the clever plotting. As with ‘The Appeal’, the significance of seemingly irrelevant details only become obvious in retrospect – I think this woud be a book better read in physical copy so that the reader can flick backwards easily to revisit clues (this is tricky in the Kindle version). I found the story compelling and loved the various twists and turns along the way – I literally had no clue where the story was going, even as it neared the end.

I also loved the fact that the mystery centres on a writer and the clues hidden in her novels – a kind of Enid Blyton figure whose books have now been abandoned by the new generation as being outdated and containing some very dubious racial and gender ideas. As a life-long bookworm who was raised on Blyton’s books, there was something very relatable and vivid in this idea.

However, I’d say that the transcript format was harder to read than the emails and voicemails of ‘The Appeal’. I think this is partially due to the nature of transcripts themselves with errors in transcription – Miss Iles becomes ‘missiles’, etc. – which took a while to adjust to, although I accept that this is very well done. Also, the fact that most of the novel is told in one voice was less varied and engaging for me – especially as Steven is a highly unreliable narrator with only a tiny portion of the story available to him.

So does this book match up to ‘The Appeal’?

The answer is – for me – not quite. There is so much to love about ‘The Twyford Code’ and I found it compelling and fascinating. However, I think I found it more far-fetched than Hallett’s original book and harder to relax into – it definitely is a challenge to keep up with the plot twists and revelations and I did find myself lost a couple of times. I’d still recommend it highly – get a paper copy, clear the diary and lose yourself in a very clever story!

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