The Twyford Code: Winner of the Crime and Thriller British Book of the Year

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Overall, a very entertaining, gilded, lustrous tale that will have you angling or desperately trawling for clues and having huge fun along the way.

Well that was a bit sneaky and very clever! I really didn’t like her first book and dreaded reading this but I ended up enjoying it a lot. Hallett doesn’t want to tell her stories in the traditional way - the first one was told through a series WhatsApp messages and didn’t work for me, but this story is told as transcripts of recorded voice messages and it works much better. The answer is – for me – not quite. There is so much to love about ‘The Twyford Code’ and I found it compelling and fascinating. However, I think I found it more far-fetched than Hallett’s original book and harder to relax into – it definitely is a challenge to keep up with the plot twists and revelations and I did find myself lost a couple of times. I’d still recommend it highly – get a paper copy, clear the diary and lose yourself in a very clever story!even though i was unable to participate in the investigative part of the experience, i had a ton of fun reading it. The Twyford Code has a better story to it than The Appeal, both because the structure of The Appeal isn't narrative, so it's jagged-by-design, but also The Twyford Code turned out to be more than *just* a mystery; there's a lovely and emotionally-rewarding story at its core THAT I WILL SAY NO MORE ABOUT (...). My involvement has been lifelong. I joined the Raglan Players – based in Northolt in west London where I still live – when I was 14. I met my partner there. I’ve done everything from prompting to props to wardrobe. I’ve directed, written plays for them, been in plays. I’ve served behind the bar, cleaned up after… it’s an all-encompassing hobby. But we’ve found, like a lot of amateur drama groups, that we can’t generate new members. In the 21st century, people don’t want to go out to take part in that kind of hobby. The Raglan Players, sadly, folded in 2013. The novel is my love letter to them – though some people might say it’s a strange love letter.

We find out that 40-years ago, on an unsponsored trip to the coast with their beloved school teacher, Miss Isles, Steven and five of his classmates were stranded after their teacher disappeared. Through a series of audio recordings, a former felon recounts his attempts to solve a literary code that may lead to stolen gold…or maybe that's all a red herring.Let me get this out here first: I loved Janice Hallett’s debut novel, ‘The Appeal’. Everything about it was fantastic, from the modern epistolary style to the brilliantly relatable setting of a small-town amateur dramatics society. The characters were immediately recognisable types and the plot was unpredictable in all the best ways. Cosy, witty and so clever – I absolutely gulped it down and put ‘The Twyford Code’ at the top of my most anticipated books of 2022. I do have a couple of unresolved questions, but I am sure that is more to do with my own tiny brain trying to wrap itself around all the details, than an issue with the story. Nevertheless, those small items did make the experience a tiny smidge short of perfect for me.

The book’s title refers to a (fictional) children’s author called Edith Twyford, who is clearly based on British author Enid Blyton, author of several children’s series in the 1930s, including The Famous Five and The Secret Seven. This book uses transcripts of messages recorded by the main protagonist, Steven Smith. He is a man with a shady past who is working to solve a mystery that has haunted him since his schooldays when his teacher, Miss Iles, disappeared on a school trip. The key to uncovering the truth seems to lie with his remedial English class and a children’s novel by now-disgraced writer Edith Twyford that holds a code. As Steven visits the people and places from his past, it becomes obvious that the Twyford Code is bigger than he could have imagined… Steve Smith has just been released from prison after an eleven year spell for murder. Illiterate when he went in, he’s learnt to read and write and is determined not to return to his former life of crime. Known as Little Smithy to his friends (as opposed to his father, Smithy, and his brother, big Smithy), he also wants to solve the mystery of what happened to his favourite high school Remedial English teacher, Alice Isles, who disappeared on a day trip to Cornwall with his class. The Twyford Code is out in January. It’s about a former prisoner who, at the behest of his probation officer and to occupy his time now he is going straight, looks into an episode from his childhood where his English teacher took his remedial English class out for the day and then disappeared. The Appeal is an ensemble piece; The Twyford Code is one character’s personal journey. And I’m working on a third book for 2023 and have a deal for another two novels. Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children’s book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. Wanting to know more, he took it to his English teacher Miss Iles, not realising the chain of events that he was setting in motion. Miss Iles became convinced that the book was the key to solving a puzzle and that a message in secret code ran through all Twyford’s novels. Then Miss Iles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven has no memory of what happened to her.I loved The Appeal last year, but I do think that it and this book had one thing in common which was that it got pretty bogged down in the middle, although the payoff was great. This book began a series of books that took brain power to interpret and even then the meaning remained elusive. The other books that I place with this one I have already read but not yet reviewed. Kind of serendipitous that they came one after another. Maybe the fates knew I needed to immerse myself in something,a diversion to my reality. Forty years ago, Steven “Smithy” Smith found a copy of a famous children’s book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations.