It's time to solve the murder of the century...

Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children's book, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. He took it to his remedial English teacher, Miss Isles, who became convinced it was the key to solving a puzzle. That a message in secret code ran through all Edith Twyford's novels. Then Miss Isles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven's memory won't allow him to remember what happened. Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Steven decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. Was Miss Isles murdered? Was she deluded? Or was she right about the code? And is it still in use today? Desperate to recover his memories and find out what really happened to Miss Isles, Steven revisits the people and places of his childhood. But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn't just a writer of forgotten children's stories. The Twyford Code has great power, and he isn't the only one trying to solve it...

Another very cleverly written mystery novel by Janice Hallett with a very unusual main character. Lots of twists and turns and a great ending, loved the final few sentences and the coded message it spelt out !

Reserved for December meet up

Released at the pre Xmas meet up

Really enjoyed reading The Appeal earlier this year and almost bought this one a couple of days ago. Delighted to pick this up at the Old Gang Meetup - thank you

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett - Good

I really enjoyed The Appeal when I read it last year, but this one I struggled with. Where The Appeal was written as a series of emails and text messages, The Twyford Code is written as transcribed voice recordings, with all their mis-transcriptions eg must have becomes mustard, going to becomes gun a etc.

So, the story.. Steve Smith has been released from prison and is living in a bail hostel. He's recently discovered that he has an adult son and whilst they have reconnected, the son wants to keep his distance. He gives his father his old iPhone and it is this device that Steve/Smithy uses to record his thoughts each day (almost a diary) for his son to hear eventually. Smithy only recently learnt to read during his sentence and finds writing difficult so this is the ideal solution.

All his time inside has made Smithy quite obsessive about a book he found as a child, his teacher in the remedial education class and the group of children she taught. The book is by Edith Twyford (a disguised Enid Blyton) and her books are out of favour due to the attitudes of the age when they were written but Smithy remembers the adventure story, that his teacher had discovered a code hidden in the story, had taken them on a trip to investigate and then disappeared.

He starts to contact his ex-classmates and investigate The Twyford Code himself, recording as he goes.

Now this should have really engaged me, but I struggled with some of the mis-transcription and felt it dragged a bit in the middle...but once everything started to come together it picked up and I realised all the clever little clues that I'd missed.

On the whole, I preferred The Appeal. Whilst this was clever in retrospect, I still struggled part way through and only continued as I wanted to know what was actually going on. But, this hasn't put me off and I shall read her latest book when I get hold of a copy.

#review

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Caught at the Old Gang meet up. Thank you!

Like Cassandra2020 I felt this dragged in the middle after a promising start. I thought it was a very clever idea, but went on a bit too long in my view. I'm planning to share this one at the Falkirk Convention.

Set free in the Little Free Library. Happy reading!