I must be one of the few people not yet to have read Janice Hallett’s previous book, The Appeal, but I’m certainly aware of all the fuss it attracted and I jumped at the chance to read a review copy of her forthcoming novel, The Twyford Code.
The Twyford Code begins with a letter from an Inspector Waliso to a Professor Mansfield, asking the Professor to examine some transcripts of audio files taken from an iPhone belonging to a missing person. The introduction reminded me straight away of the beginnings of some classic epistolary novels, and intrigued me.
The transcripts themselves are then presented, as dictated by Steven Smith. It soon becomes apparent that Steven has had a bit of a chequered past and, on his release from prison, is recording the files while he tries to solve a mystery that’s been on his mind for years, concerning an old school teacher of his who went missing on an unofficial school outing. The Twyford Code is set up as a kind of mystery within a mystery, as we don’t know what has happened to Steven himself.
The Twyford of the title refers to the fictitious author, Edith Twyford, a children’s author who has fallen out of fashion and whose books are thought to contain a secret code. Steven believes that his teacher’s disappearance has something to do with her attempts to crack this code. The descriptions of Edith Twyford and her novels bring to mind Enid Blyton, and there’s a sly humour that runs through The Twyford Code.
I don’t want to give too much away about this novel, other than to say it’s complex and very cleverly constructed, and you may well be tempted to re-read parts of it when you reach the end, to see for yourself all the things you missed.
I have, of course, now obtained a copy of The Appeal!
Still Got Manners 