The Christmas Appeal

A Novella

By: Janice Hallett

Narrated by: Aysha Kala, Daniel Philpott, Rachel Adedeji, Sid Sagar

Length: 3 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

This immersive holiday caper from the “modern Agatha Christie” (The Sunday Times, London) follows the hilarious Fairway Players theater group as they put on a Christmas play—and solve a murder that threatens their production.

The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of Jack and the Beanstalk to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes.

Of course, there’s also the matter of the dead body onstage. Who could possibly have had the victim on their naughty list? Join lawyers Femi and Charlotte as they investigate Christmas letters, examine emails, and pore over police transcripts to identify both the victim and killer before the curtain closes on their holiday production—for good.

©2023 Janice Hallett (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

A Modern Christmas Murder Mystery in Epistolary Form

This is a fun little novella full of cast of questionable characters. Once you get into the story, it's hard to stop!

A funny holiday mystery…

I thought this was a fun read with an interesting style. I listened to the audio while I read with the book and I can say it definitely lends itself more to reading than listening but is still a good read for the holiday season.

Really hard to pay attention

There's a trend in books: instead of writing a narrative, the author strings together various text messages,
emails, phone calls to move the story forward. This is supposedly in the traditional 'epistolary style..' as if
a character is writing his/her thoughts in a letter. Let's be real: a letter is more informative than a
text message which is short and sweet, and reveals little about the sender or receiver.
This technique of putting together a mystery leaves the reader in the dark: what is going on here?
I had a difficult time paying attention because I did not give a fig for any of the characters or the situations.
There was little effort in fleshing out the characters, the setting or in the response to the crime.
The narrators were serviceable but on the whole, this was not my cup of tea.

The humor, characters, and plot are excellent. The print edition is great because the characters and humor are easier to savor.

There is nothing to dislike here, as this is a treat to read and listen to.