The Appeal

An ingenious puzzle mystery written entirely in electronic correspondence (mostly emails and text messages). As one might imagine, this requires some straining of credulity, particularly regarding persons who exist only via said correspondence. It also seems absurd that a pair of legal counsel would never meet in person to discuss the evidence but would laboriously go over it via WhatsApp. However, I found it compulsively readable and couldn't sleep until I'd gotten to the end. The plot was certainly primary, but the characters were acceptably interesting and it was fun to see how the author revealed their characters through their missives. I enjoyed the “Little Theatre” setting too. In some ways, drama is in some ways the opposite of the epistolary form – as it relies on people interacting in real space and time. But on the other hand, through letter-writing one can conceal one's real identity, as does an actor. So there was a neat tension of literary form along with the criminal intrigue.

This book man. It was not great. I read it because the concept seemed interesting (discovery documents in a law case!), but it just didn't work.

Also, if I realized the bulk of the mystery was going to be financial crimes, I probably wouldn't have even bothered, because it's so dull.

Why does everyone email each other all the time?! Some of it, sure. Email doctors, email your business correspondence, email people overseas. Yes, that makes sense. Emailing that you're waiting for someone? Or about a kid's toy? No! Just text! Especially since there are also texts included! One character at one point even emails(!) something to the effect of “why are you emailing? You were just standing next to me!” And, yeah.

I also feel like I never really got to know the characters. Issy is annoying and almost childlike despite being a nurse, but she's the only one I really felt like I understood even a little.

Revealing things through different phases of discovery is interesting, but just made me feel left out of what was going, or deliberately misled, a lot. I understand that's what mysteries usually do, but it just didn't work.

And, though I guess understandable, not having correspondence from certain characters made me not really care about them at all. The murder is so convoluted. The resolution is so anticlimactic.

Two stars because it reads fast and I wanted to know what was going on, but overall it just didn't work for me.

Clever, well-plotted and delivered in an unusual way that facilitates quick reading and build the suspense. I enjoyed this start to finish, with the minor quibble that occasionally realism lead to repetition, which is to say the words of one character were were predictable and uninteresting, which made for a believable character but the odd dull passage. The format was unusual, though not revolutionary and enabled the reader to come to their own conclusions. A lot of fun.

This was an interesting read. Get lost in a mystery unlike any other.
I am going to admit that this book took me a little bit to get into, but I think it was more the unusual style that it was written in. It comes through a correspondence style, emails and messages back and forth.

Overall, this was a fantastic read, and you are going to have a lot of fun putting all the pieces together and figuring out who dun it!!

Perfect beach read material!

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S THE APPEAL ABOUT?
The setup is basically this: a pair of law students have been given a stack of documents—emails, texts, voicemail transcripts, letters, and so on. They're to read through this stack and be prepared to work out what crime(s) happened in what's documented and who did what (and maybe why).

The correspondence focuses on a period of March-July in the lives of people in The Fairway Players or their associates. The Fairway Players are a local amateur theater group from a small community. As the group starts to plan their next play, the director makes a horrible announcement: his granddaughter, Poppy, has just been diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. He's going to have to step back for a while, and Poppy's uncle will be stepping up to direct, etc. There's an experimental drug from the U.S. that's her best shot at a cure, but it's expensive and the family's trying to crowdfund the treatment.

The Players are galvanized into action—individually and as a whole. People do charity runs, have a fundraising gala, a raffle, direct contributions, and so on—and, of course, all the proceeds from The Fairway Players' next play will go to the Fund.

The stack of documents chronicles the messages about this fundraising appeal, the emails of support, and a lot of the behind-the-scenes work at the appeal and the play, and assorted tangential matters. There's a lot of gossip, backstabbing, emotional manipulation, and...well, you start to get the idea that not everything is on the up-and-up with the appeal, the treatment, and some of the people involved. The more you start to piece together the picture these emails, etc. are painting, the more you're pretty sure you're missing something big. Maybe a few somethings. A crime has been committed, one or two may be in progress, and there may be more on the way.

The only way to find out is to see what the next email has to say.

ISABEL BECK
When it comes to sheer word count, we hear more from Isabel Beck than any of the other characters. This doesn't necessarily mean that we know more about her than some of the others—we just get more input from her about what's going on. Or at least what she says is going on.

Issy is clearly a lonely person. Until she recruits a couple of new colleagues, she's the newest member of The Fairway Players and isn't really liked by most (and, in fact, the people she brings in are quickly more welcome than she is). She's described as “mousy,” “drippy,” who “latches on to” people—and some things not as complimentary. Between her emails and what others say about her, you really start to pity Issy.

And that feeling just grows—like just about every person in the book, she does some truly lousy things. But unlike just about every person in the book, I only felt bad for her. I really hoped for a heaping dose of comeuppance to be given to everyone else but kept hoping something good would happen for Issy.

If I liked nothing else about The Appeal, Isabel Beck would be enough for me to tell you to go read this book. I'm so glad I met this character, one of the best of 2021.

THE STROKE OF GENIUS
The law students, Femi and Charlotte, communicate with each other via WhatsApp about these documents as they read—as you read, too. They get exactly the same information as the reader does when the reader does. As they write back and forth, it's like you're a part of the conversation with them. Instead of texting/messaging your friend(s) as you read the same novel, in this case, you're reading along with a couple of the characters.

In mysteries, as the reader, you're always looking back at things, seeing what happened. Even if the narration is in the present tense, it's going through things that have already happened. Which is the case here, too. But you're with Femi and Charlotte in the trenches—it feels very “now”—while you and those two are looking towards the future, what documents are going to be coming? As they start to put things together, you do, too (sometimes faster than them, sometimes a beat or two behind them). It's a fun—and brilliant—layer on top of what's already a great book that kicks it up a notch or two of cleverness.

LINGERING QUESTIONS
One of the downsides/advantages (depending on your point of view) of this type of storytelling is that you don't have an omniscient narrator—or even a first person—to tie up all the loose ends.

I have several lingering questions about some of the events of the book, many of which can't even make a decent guess about the answer for. If Connelly, Rankin, Holten, Goldberg, or anyone else had left this much hanging—you can believe I'd be jumping up and down shouting my objections to the heavens. But I'm oddly at peace with this. I have been and am going to be spending some time chewing on my questions, make no mistake, but I'm fine with Hallett not tieing everything up in a nice bow.

I should stress that all the important questions, the ones that keep the reader turning pages for, are answered in definitive ways.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE APPEAL?
I ordered this book as soon as I read Noelle Holten's post about it in July. Then listening to Hallet on The Blood Brothers Podcast just made me anticipate it more. So when I saw this on NetGalley, I had to jump—who wants to wait until January for the US release?

I am so glad that I didn't wait.

As I read this, I kept saying to myself things like, “oh, this is clever;” “this is great;” “oohh, impressive;” and so on. And then 30-60 minutes later, I'd say the same thing again, but mean it more. And then again 30-minutes later. Right up to the final paragraphs, this kept getting better and better—and it started off great.

Now that I've said such grandiose things that no book can possibly live up to them, I'm not sure there's a whole lot left to say.

The Appeal is a funny, thought-provoking, and suspenseful novel full of great, believable characters—not a whole lot of likable characters, but believable and interesting, sure—with a multi-layered plot that will keep you guessing and thinking as it pushes you to keep going; all presented in a format that you've seen rarely (if ever) in a mystery novel. If the execution isn't flawless, it's close enough that you won't notice.

One of the best of the year. Period.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Atria via NetGalley in exchange for this post and my honest opinion—thanks to both for this.

This book was written in a way that makes it feel like you're eavesdropping on someone else's conversation, and I am living for it. I am nosey so yeah; I enjoyed the writing style.

It is so well done. I wasn't bored at all while reading it. It really felt like I was part of the ongoing investigation. I was living my dream of becoming a detective. The person who was murdered wasn't mentioned until about halfway through, but it didn't feel slow at all.

I feared that it would become repetitive and confusing as the story went on, but I was proven wrong. This was a fun and different reading experience overall.

Interesting Premise. Novel Concept. Quite Verbose. This was a book that had an interesting premise for a story and a novel concept for storytelling - particularly with its emphasis on more modern communication methods - but ultimately was just. too. long. There are so very many characters here that few of them truly get fleshed out and many of them become very hard to keep distinct even in a mind normally attuned to doing just that. And so very many extraneous details that while enhancing the epistolary feel, really drag the overall narrative to the speed of a human baby just beginning to learn to crawl. But other than these two points, the story was quite good and the overall concept is something I'd like to see done better, either in future works from this author or by other authors generally. Recommended.

I thought the concept of the book was really interesting, but a few things took me out of it. The overabundance of email correspondences seemed a bit too out of place for a novel in 2018. Maybe I am misunderstanding things, I don't know.

While the book cover invites you to try and solve the case, crucial information comes in the form of someone outside the events, who wasn't actively part of the investigation. While we are invited to solve it, we are not given enough information about the actual “evidence” and correspondences of the various characters involved in the mystery.

Additionally, we are not given ample opportunity to solve the case, because no real pause happens between the information being given to us and the trainees trying to solve the case - so who is really solving the case? I find the beauty of Christie and some of the Japanese mystery novels is that we - the reader - are given an opportunity to solve the case with all the evidence provided to us, which is always ample. But here, we are merely observers watching Femi and Charlotte solve the case.

The majority of the book is in the form of email correspondences, which does take me out of the reading of the novel, the discussion between the trainees happens in the form of text messages. It seems a bit of a large leap to see that a big lawyer and almost everyone in that tiny township are unable to use messaging apps, and instead rely on emails to communicate with each other, and often times very important information.

I also found the deliberate lack of correspondence from two people who are crucial to the plot are wholly omitted, very annoying. We only see their characterisation through the eyes/words of others. And, again, it didn't help me feel anything for the character and want to solve the mystery.

I also felt like the murder comes in too late into the novel, because we already know it is going to happen, so you keep waiting for it happen and it takes way too long for it to appear and then the ending is often rushed. Maybe that format is more appropriate for this kind of storytelling. It just wasn't my thing.

This is more of a 2.5 book for me. It was a bit too over hyped. I was quite disappointed at the end of this.

Meaningless side comment here but what is up with the US edition cover looking like all of those poor, sad hidden romance/erotica novels found tucked ruefully away in a corner at your local B&N in early 2010's? Lol.

If that cover is all you're able to buy/or borrow from your library this is the one time I feel like I can genuinely say: Don't trust a book by it's cover. If you're into more lighthearted mysteries with a plentiful cast of characters, this is worth a read.

Heel slim en uniek opgebouwd. Spannend met meeslepende personages.

Twee juridische assistenten krijgen van hun baas een dossier vol e-mails en sms'jes voorgeschoteld zonder achtergrondinformatie, omdat hij wil dat ze alles met een open geest lezen in de hoop dat ze onafhankelijk tot een bepaalde conclusie zullen komen. Als lezer stappen we op dezelfde manier in het dossier, met af en toe een commentaar of een notitie van de meelezende juridische assistenten.
Door dit format leest het als een trein. Er zijn geen hoofdstukken, alleen bericht na bericht, waardoor het moeilijk weg te leggen is, gezien ik altijd slechts nog één berichtje wou lezen.

In eerste instantie leek de grote cast aan personages overweldigend, maar net doordat we ook regelmatig een samenvattende lijst te zien krijgen, bleef alles toch overzichtelijk.
Ik had wel vrij snel een vermoeden van wat er aan de hand was, maar de finale onthullingen waren toch verrassend.

Eén iets waar ik ook niet te veel bij stil mocht staan was het feit dat die mensen elkaar toch wel heel veel mailen en ook quasi onmiddellijk reactie kregen. Ik snap wel dat het e-mail formaat meer tekst toe laat om mee te werken voor dit boek, maar ik heb toch regelmatig gezegd “amai, die reageren rap.” of “hoe raar dat ze daarvoor mailen”.

Maar goed, immens goed gevonden en een feestmaal voor mijn innerlijke detective! En dat einde was super creepy, lol.

I like the mixed media format, but found that final 3rd to be a slog.

I think if you don't read a ton mysteries and are interested in the format used you'll probably enjoy this.

As far as the mystery goes, personally, I figured out the meat of it by about halfway through, and could see all the “twists” coming.

And the final reasoning behind the whole thing felt like a pretty convoluted way to tie things together.

4.5 stars

This was so good!!

I've read books with mixed media before but never where the book is entirely in different formats. I did wonder if it would suffer from a lack of description but it was so engrossing it didn't feel like it was affected.

I really liked the twists and how this played out at the end. I did guess some of the reveals part way through but it was still fun to see it all unfold.

My only gripe with this is how much these people emailed each other when it's absolutely not necessary. There are sections where they are messaging each other by text then will switch to email, which just doesn't make sense, why not just keep texting? Especially when it's between husband and wife. Just a bit odd.

Funnily enough, I was all in for the first half of this book. I really liked the modern epistolary format. It wasn't super realistic (if so it would all be fragmented texts littered with emojis) but I was okay with that. I was engaged with the characters. The plot was interesting and provided lots of theoretical routes to go down.

But then... I lost some interest once the murder actually happens and the lawyers start discussing theories. It was a tad too “meta” for me, since the lawyers are supposed to be like us—the readers, trying to solve the murder. Really it was an avenue of misdirection for the author, which bothered me because I was so aware of it. Some of the theories they start with are so outlandish and unbelievable it felt like an insult to my intelligence. “15 suspects” is also an exaggeration, since most of them have zero motive whatsoever and I didn't even consider them as suspects. And the “questions” posed made it feel like a crime-solving board game instead of a novel.

I wish the author had kept going after the murder with texts, emails, etc. from the characters we were already familiar with, through the trial itself. It would have held my interest more than looking back and reading between the lines. In the end, I had called most of it (confusing questions aside), though I thought the author's choice of murderer had a weak motive.

In any case, it was still fun and I would consider reading her next book.