The Killer Question
A Novel
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3.8 • 16 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
Named a Most Anticipated Book of Fall by The New York Times, LitHub, BookBub, Goodreads, and many more!
Janice Hallett, “the new queen of crime” (Electric Literature), returns with a fresh, edge-of-your-seat mystery that takes place at a pub’s weekly trivia night, revealed through quiz categories, phone messages, and email correspondence.
Sue and Mal Eastwood run an isolated rural pub called The Case is Altered where a weekly trivia game has revived its flagging fortunes—that is, until a body is found in the nearby river. Soon after, a mysterious new team arrives and shakes up the diverse field of regulars by scoring top marks in every round...every week.
Meanwhile, Sue and Mal have a secret of their own. Before arriving here, they were caught up in a secret police operation which meant they had to leave town—and whatever happened back then seems to have finally caught up with them.
Five years later, the pub lies derelict, and their nephew Dominic is determined to make a documentary about their story. What happened at this unassuming pub? And can a single question really kill?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Told via group chats, texts, and assorted documents, Janice Hallett’s artful mystery digs into petty competitiveness, greed, and a past that won’t stay buried. Aspiring TV producer Dominic Eastwood is pitching a true-crime documentary about his uncle and aunt, Mal and Sue. Five years ago, the couple managed a rural pub, bringing in a dedicated group of locals every Monday night with a carefully crafted trivia quiz. This seemingly peaceful status quo gets disrupted when the body of a man previously accused of cheating on the quiz turns up nearby while a mysterious new team starts winning the game every week. We were hanging onto every scrap of evidence, wondering what the connection was to Mal and Sue’s murky past as police officers investigating a hush-hush kidnapping case. You’ll have a blast piecing together the puzzle of whodunit in The Killer Question.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hallett (The Examiner) continues to stretch the limits of the epistolary mystery in this playful tale of murder at a weekly trivia night. The Case Is Altered is a struggling pub on a British back road that relies on its quiz crowd to keep the lights on. When a new team shows up and trounces the regulars, accusations of cheating escalate until somebody's found dead in a nearby river. This being a Hallett novel, much of the story comes together through trivia categories, WhatsApp messages, police interviews, and emails. The focus is on Dominic Eastwood, nephew of The Case Is Altered's owners, who is pitching a true crime documentary to Netflix about an earlier tragedy at the pub. Those familiar with Hallett's brand of puzzle-solving will have a ball piecing together the meticulously placed clues. Some choices—like the decision to list the pub's trivia categories but not any questions or answers—feel like pulled punches, but for the most part, Hallett is at the top of her game. It's a wickedly satisfying ride.
Customer Reviews
Tangled tale well told
A unique and challenging format. Worth the effort. Lots of twists and turns and then lots more. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Format
The epistle format may be for some, but I found the format distancing and tedious. It may be that I just favor books that I can be immersed in rather than viewed from afar but reading this book was like watching a mediocre play through a proscenium from the back row. In the 2nd balcony.