The Examiner
A Novel
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Told in emails, text messages, and essays, this unputdownable mystery follows a group of students in an art master’s program that goes dangerously awry, from the internationally bestselling “new queen of crime” (Electric Literature) Janice Hallett.
Gela Nathaniel, head of Royal Hastings University’s new Multimedia Art course, must find six students from all walks of life across the United Kingdom for her new master’s program before the university cuts her funding. The students are nothing but trouble from day one.
There’s Jem, a talented sculptor recently graduated from her university program and eager to make her mark as an artist at any cost. Jonathan, who has little experience aside from running his family’s gallery. Patrick manages an art supply store, but can barely operate his phone, much less design software. Ludya is a single mother and graphic designer more interested in a paycheck than homework. Cameron is a marketing executive in search of a hobby or a career change. And Alyson, already a successful artist, seems to be overqualified.
When the examiner, the man hired to grade students’ final workssifts through the students’ final essays, texts, and message boards, he becomes convinced that someone is in danger…or already dead.
With her trademark “witty, original” (The New York Times) voice, Janice Hallett weaves a fresh and mind-bending page-turner that will keep you guessing until the final page.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This clever mystery urges you to engage your inner sleuth and join a university examiner in plowing through a messy assortment of electronic documents to determine if a crime has been committed. A financially strapped London university offers a new one-year degree course in commercial multimedia arts to six handpicked but monumentally ill-suited students. The only person who actually seems to belong there is Jem, a talented, spoiled, and ruthlessly ambitious young woman determined to ferret out everyone’s secrets—including why the other students and the instructor are pretending that Alyson, a volatile professional artist, is still showing up at the studio when she clearly hasn’t been there in weeks. This is an unreliable-narrator story on overdrive with a wildly complicated plot, and you’ll want to be there for every shocking minute of it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Combing through emails, essays, texts, and chatroom messages, a mysterious "examiner" uncovers the hidden motives of six graduate students enrolled in a multimedia art course at London's Royal Hastings University, in the convoluted latest epistolary mystery from Hallett (after The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels). With varying degrees of skill, the students—established artists Ludya and Alyson; gallery owner Jonathan; bored executive Cameron; art supply store owner Patrick; and emerging audio artist Jem—create elaborate art installations while forming friendships and rivalries that mask their true reasons for taking the class. As the communications wear on, it becomes clear that there's been a murder among the group, and that many of the students are concealing secret identities. With her colleague's help, class instructor Gela Nathaniel attempts to follow the clues to uncover the killer, but her efforts only propel the narrative to a tangled, unsatisfying conclusion. The initial novelty of the format collapses under the plot's increasingly intricate mix of climate activism, nuclear threats, and latent Cold War intrigue. This is likely to leave readers lost.
