The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallet
Published: October 24, 2023
(Thanks to Atria Books & NetGalley, I received an eARC)
Hardcover: 208 pages
Goodreads Rating: 4/5
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
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.
MY THOUGHTS:
I highly recommend reading “The Appeal” by this author before picking up this one. I love books with mixed media elements. I enjoyed that this whole book was told through emails, texts, and letters. Through the mixed media aspects we learn about the events as they were happening and what is going on behind the scenes.
The book focuses on a bunch of people in a play run by rival families who are trying to be on top after an issue from the first book. The fact that there were so many characters is usually daunting but this book gave such a comprehensive run down of each one it was very easy to follow. It was hard to trust any characters or their motives, there were so many agendas behind the scenes.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this one and thought it had a solid storyline. There were a lot of twists and turns, many I didn’t see coming. I loved that there was also a comprehensive run down of all theories going on in the detectives minds. I highly recommend this to everyone.
Boston Book Reader 