I’ll have to read another Hallett book to see if Alperton Angels was a once-off because I really enjoyed this book. Her new book, The Examiner, looks the most interesting but I will pick up The Twyford Code to see what’s going on. I read this in 2 days and had fun all the way through – compared to the slog and bore that was Angels (yes, I should’ve dnfed lol).

I think what changed this time around is that the law students (I kept thinking they were detectives, probably because they were in contact with a PC (Police Constable)) were very in the background. They’d pop up here and there with a few messages and then were only really in the forefront near the end. Compared to Angels when the authors were constantly messaging each other and we were ‘treated’ to their ‘personality’.

The characters (the ones involved in the crime) were also way more interesting than the first Hallett book I read. They live in a small town, so yes, they are quite involved in each others’ lives and are more nosy than I’d like people I’d see every week for community theatre. Isabel was just my absolute favourite. I screenshotted nearly every email that Isabel sent to show my friend and my girl? was so unhinged you just have to love her. Something I said to my friend and I’ll say it here is: Nothing says delulu like Isalulu. She was out here planning a WHOLE TRIP to Africa with her so-called ‘bestie’, Samantha, who’s new to the theatre group (Samantha and her husband used to work for Doctors Without Borders in Africa – everyone just says ‘Africa’, they worked in 3 different countries). Then to other people she’s saying that the trip is Sam’s idea. She’s also just… constantly trying to make Sam her bestie and I was just Regina George in Mean Girls – “stop trying to make fetch happen!”

I thought it was an interesting idea to make Sam and her husband never really interact with any of the others. They don’t send emails or text messages so you don’t get to know their personalities like the others. At the same time they didn’t… really have much of a personality – so that was also annoying because I didn’t feel like I knew them; ; I was just knew them from others’ interactions and feelings of them. And you can’t trust anything Isabel say so lol. 

The actual murder happens quite late in, which I’m not a fan of. I was raised on procedural crime shows where the murder happens before the intro. It’s a good reason (in my opinion) to dnf – but in here that didn’t bother me too much because I did want to solve the murder. I won’t talk much about the murder and the perpetrator but I didn’t like who it turned out to be. I understood the motives, but it didn’t fit the character so much?