By Janice Hallett @JaniceHallett
Published by Viper Books @ViperBooks https://serpentstail.com/viper/ (part of Serpent’s Tail, an imprint of Profile Books)
208 pages ISBN 9781800817357
Publication date 26 October 2023
I was allowed access to a pdf review copy on Net Galley https://www.netgalley.com/ @NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. I would like to thank Anne at Random Things Tours @RandomTTours for the invitation to participate in the Blog Tour and of course the Author and Publisher.
The Cover
Just the sort of cover one might expect for a cosy Christmas read, but of course we know that there will an unpleasant surprise coming.
My thoughts
They say Christmas starts earlier each year and here we are now in October and there are a clutch of Christmas books coming out. I’m very much on the side of the Grinch when it comes to Christmas, but I decided to dip into this one because of the two previous books by the author that I’ve reviewed on this blog The Twyford Code and The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. I do have a copy of The Appeal but I’ve not got around to it yet. This small novel (novella perhaps) revisits the setting and characters of The Appeal but I think it works equally well enough as a stand-alone. Let the festivities commence…
Christmas means one thing for amateur dramatics groups, and the Fairway Players of Lower Lockwood prove to be no exception; panto season. That great British tradition that seems to puzzle foreign visitors, and here the reader is introduced to a puzzle of a different kind. With the church in desperate need of funds to repair the roof (thanks to the damage from a massive bat-poo-patty) it is hoped that this year’s performance of Jack and the Beanstalk will be a big success. After all Sarah-Jane has sourced an impressive fibreglass beanstalk to wow the audience but she has accounted for the petty jealousy of others and the liberal application of ‘Sod’s law’.
When the curtain goes up the audience gets a performance that they are not likely to forget.
If you have read any of the previous novels by the author, you will know what to expect. Once again, instead of a more traditional prose format we have we have a series of emails, text and WhatsApp messages to work through. Not as original as it once was but its an entertaining way to construct a puzzle, though I guess it is not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’. It is a great way of demonstrating the two-faced bitchiness of some players as they say one thing and then immediately something else to another character, so read the message to/from carefully.
It is given structure by the framing of a puzzle presented to lawyers Femi Hassan and Charlotte Holroyd by their former boss Roderick Tanner KC (retired), the question is can you the reader solve it first.
At its core it’s the attitudes and social standing of middle-class middle-England, with all its pettiness and one-upmanship. Lower Lockwood now has council and low-cost housing estates and even though The Fairway Player are short on numbers, some don’t want ‘that sort of person’ joining. More energy is expended jockeying for position, control and status within the group than trying to recruit. This is very entertainingly done but in a gentler way rather than caustic, like the dynamic between Captain Mainwaring and Sargeant Wilson in Dad’s Army. This question is do you take sides or sit back and marvel at the ridiculousness of it all.
The traditions of village pantomime are upheld with some aplomb; the dodgy 1970s script, the improvisation (in this case a Sainsburys trolly), the appearance of Santa at the end and sweets for the children (which turn out to be both unusual and expensive). Poor Santa, as the reader will discover.
One family wanted to put on the farce When Did You Last See Your Trousers in the new year but were told farce was dead. However, that doesn’t appear to be the case as Jack and the Beanstalk goes from pantomime to farce before finally tragedy in hilarious fashion, with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Elements edge towards the macabre, but most readers will still find it darkly funny in a way that allows us a guilt free escape from a world that is dark enough at times. I love dogs in fiction and here Woof gets a couple of lovely cameos within all this mayhem. Poor Santa. A classic example of how everything going wrong can result in something far better than originally planned, though the Fairway Players are unlikely to top this performance.
The Christmas Appeal manages to capture the joy of panto, within a farce and a puzzle, which will leave you with a smile on your face. If my Christmas was this entertaining, I might be less of a Grinch!
The Christmas Appeal can be purchased via the publisher’s website here
The author
Janice Hallett is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Appeal (a Waterstones
Thriller of the Month, the Sunday Times Crime Book of the Year and winner of the
CWA Debut Dagger award) and the Sunday Times bestsellers The Twyford Code and
The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. She lives in West London.
Don’t forget to check out the other reviews on this blog tour:
Peter turns the page 
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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