Janice Hallett

Reviewed on 20th June 2026

Ava and Luke's second mystery box from their dad's attic contains a wealth of leftover documents from a deadly 1983 school trip to the Natural History Museum in London.

As usual with Janice Hallett's novels, we're told the story through messages and documents, rather than a prose narrative. And so we learn things naturally as the characters at the time chose to document them.

It's a clever story with lots of threads that gradually unravel and reveal the story to the reader. The only thing that felt a bit weak to me was the wrap up at the end, which felt like it could have been longer and more dramatically presented.

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Reviewed on 23rd May 2026

A new Janice Hallett novel is always a delight. Once against presented in 'found footage' form, we read the text messages and emails between a group of publicans and pub quiz regulars as their habits are threatened by suspected quiz cheats. And of course a suspicious death.

I love these books, and find them so incredibly readable. I made it through this one in just three days (aided by long train journeys) as it's so compelling and flows so easily.

The plot is enrapturing, particularly as a pub-quiz-goer myself and recognising many of the tropes presented. But there's so much to notice and so much to learn about the characters and their relationships.

I've read enough of these now to start to spot some of the clues as they are revealled, but I never guessed where the overall story was going to go.

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Reviewed on 14th June 2025

I loved Janice Hallett’s other novels, and so when I saw she was writing one aimed at a younger audience I felt like I needed to read it too. Although it’s clearly targeted at children, there’s absolutely nothing that makes it any less readable as an adult.

For those new to Hallett’s work - this is a novel like a ‘found footage’ movie. Siblings Ava and Luke discover a box of old documents, and along with them, we read through the documents to uncover a story from forty years earlier. The entire narrative is told through these documents, framed with a text message conversation between the young siblings.

I raced through it, and loved every moment. Hallett’s ability to craft these stories is astounding, and as usual there’s so much going on. I’d recommend this to every child who loves reading mysteries.

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Reviewed on 28th September 2024

Janice Hallett returns for yet another of her genius mystery stories presented in the form of found written material.

This time, the notes come from an MA course in art, and include coursework, the teacher’s and students' notes, and informal communication between them, as what starts out a standard marking process becomes much more suspicious.

The concept is amazing to conceive and must take so much effort and thought to put together so meticulously. I particularly love how secrets are kept in plain sight for so long and just astound when they are revealed.

However I did think this time the ending felt somewhat unsatisfactory, and I’m not sure I entirely followed all of the final twists and reveals.

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Reviewed on 28th October 2023

A novella from Janice Hallett revisiting the scene of her breakthrough novel was an irresistible purchase for me.

It’s five years or so later, and once again we are treated to a mystery in the form of a collection of correspondence - email, text, WhatsApp etc - between the members of an amateur dramatic group, as something horrible unfolds.

It retains all the delight of the original book, and although I read through most of it in the course of a single train journey, I really enjoyed it. There’s a lot to think about, a lot to keep track of, and lots to laugh at.

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Reviewed on 4th March 2023

Janice Hallett’s third novel takes her format - the novel equivalent of a found-footage film - on a new journey as we follow the writing of a true crime book, and the author’s interactions and investigations as she tries to uncover what really happened.

This one is a bit of a hybrid presentation compared to the first two - some is correspondence, emails and text messages, and some is transcripts of audio recordings.

Thanks to a delayed train journey, I got through the book in 48 hours. But it is that gripping and the format really helps make it incredibly readable.

The plot is darker than the previous entries right from the start. To the extent that I even had a bad dream that seemed to have been inspired by it.

Overall though another great story, and I’m looking forward to more from Hallett in the coming years.

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Reviewed on 5th April 2022

Hallett’s second novel is a similar but different take on the style of her first - this time presenting the entire narrative in the form of transcripts of audio recordings, as a recently released convict records his life story, and what he gets up to, into his estranged son’s old phone.

It took me a little while to get my head into reading this style, but once there I absorbed the story as fast as possible and was totally hooked.

Hallett does a really great job of drip feeding information about multiple different narrative threads all at the same time. The book must have taken really extensive planning to work everything out and fit it into the structure so perfectly.

It’s also funny. There are a bunch of little Easter eggs hinting at some of the inspirations for parts of the story, and the main character is thoroughly likeable.

Another really good story, and I’m looking forward to more of this kind of thing.

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