Book Review: ‘The Appeal: A Novel’ By Janice Hallett

The debut novel from author Janice Hallett is written in a way that I have never read a book before. It’s done showing e-mails, text messages, notes and police forms between various characters. It’s very cleverly written and annoying at the same time (trying to read all the e-mails and text messages). The story itself is very good involving a murder and any number of people that could be guilty. You won’t want to put it down and has lots of twists and turns to keep track of. A woman has been found dead and someone has been arrested for it. The lawyer thinks they have the wrong person, so he has two of his associates go through all the paperwork that has been submitted in the case and they talk among themselves as to what they think. We get to read a ton of e-mails, notes, messages and communications with all the various characters and learn their lives and secrets. A play, a child dying of cancer, a fund-raiser website page set up and again a murder to follow along with. Not everything is as it seems and by the end of the novel all secrets have been revealed and the lawyers all figure it out. Hallett is someone to watch.

You can pick up The Appeal in stores on Tuesday, January 25th from Atria.