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The Appeal

by Janice Hallett

A murder mystery assembled from a community’s correspondence

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Awards & Recognition

  • Editorial selection

    The New York Times Best Book of the Year

    Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times.

  • Critical praise

    Praise from The New York Times

    Described as witty, original, and a delight.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A murder mystery assembled from a community’s correspondence

A local theatre group’s fundraising effort for a child’s experimental cancer treatment becomes the point where private doubts, competing motives, and escalating lies meet. After a body is found, two young lawyers examine emails, messages, and letters in the lead-up to a trial, piecing together what the documents reveal. The correspondence-based structure makes the evidence itself central to the mystery, while the theatre group and its close-knit community provide the setting for questions about trust, persuasion, and what people are willing to believe.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers who enjoy crime fiction built around a murder investigation and trial preparation.
  • For readers interested in mysteries told through emails, messages, and letters.
  • For readers drawn to stories about community tensions and competing views of experimental treatment.

Themes

Trust and deceptionCommunity and collective actionEvidence and interpretationExperimental medical treatment

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Air Mail, and more!

"[W]itty, original...a delight." --The New York Times

Perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lisa Jewell, this international bestseller and "dazzlingly clever" (The Sunday Times, London) murder mystery follows a community rallying around a sick child--but when escalating lies lead to a dead body, everyone is a suspect.

The Fairway Players, a local theatre group, is in the midst of rehearsals when tragedy strikes the family of director Martin Hayward and his wife Helen, the play's star. Their young granddaughter has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and with an experimental treatment costing a tremendous sum, their castmates rally to raise the money to give her a chance at survival.

But not everybody is convinced of the experimental treatment's efficacy--nor of the good intentions of those involved. As tension grows within the community, things come to a shocking head at the explosive dress rehearsal. The next day, a dead body is found, and soon, an arrest is made. In the run-up to the trial, two young lawyers sift through the material--emails, messages, letters--with a growing suspicion that the killer may be hiding in plain sight. The evidence is all there, between the lines, waiting to be uncovered.

A wholly modern and gripping take on the epistolary novel, The Appeal is a "daring...clever, and funny" (The Times, London) debut for fans of Richard Osman and Lucy Foley.
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