I seldom read bestsellers, particularly those in the crime fiction genre, but I succumbed to The Appeal for two reasons.
1, The plot involves members of an amateur dramatic society in a small town. Having been up close and personal with some of these individuals in recent years I know to expect plenty of tension, in-fighting, drama and banter.
2. It had novelty value — readers of this book are challenged to take an active part in solving a mystery.
The premise of The Appeal is that a British barrister is convinced the wrong person has been imprisoned for killing a member of the Fairway Players amateur dramatic society. He directs two juniors in his chambers to re-examine all the evidence and present him with an argument that will convince the appeal court.
The narrative is constructed from evidence in the form of email exchanges, text messages, voicemails and newspaper clippings, plus the summaries and commentaries from the two junior barristers.
Structuring a novel in this fashion is a risky strategy.
Emails and text messages are so often dull and can be doubly tedious if you don’t understand their context or the individuals involved in the communication. The messages have to be detailed enough to convey the story and capture the essence of the various personalities involved but if they’re loaded with too much detail, then they just sound like an info dump.
The first few pages were confusing. I felt bombarded with names of people, many of whom were related by blood or marriage and had to keep referring back to the extensive character list at the front of the book. Fortunately, this issue got resolved as the book progressed and more distinctive voices came to light.
In addition to individual names, there’s a lot of other detail to keep track of — dates, timings, past histories — so you have to have your wits about you as you read this novel. You also have to pay close attention to the gaps in information where the writers of those emails/text messages leave out certain detail (by accident or deliberately we don’t know).
Hallett tried to get around this with periodic breaks in the message chatter where the lawyers recap everything they’ve learned and identify questions yet to be answered. These summaries did help to bring everything together, reminding me also what I’d learned and highlighting significant info that I’d missed. But they just didn’t feel like real exchanges between two colleagues.
For all that, The Appeal a reasonably entertaining read that will satisfy people who enjoy following a trail of hints about the killer’s identity and the motive for their crime. It perfectly captures the squabbles and minor irritations you find in any organisation — right down to one character’s high-handed attitude over meeting minutes — while tackling some bigger issues about the potential for fund-raising efforts to become embroiled in fraud.
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