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gemsliterarygems 's review for:
The Examiner
by Janice Hallett
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
As ever, I loved this mystery from Janice Hallett! If you’ve read any of her other books, you’ll know that it’s a very different style to your average murder mystery. With emails, WhatsApp messages, tutor notes, diary entries and a doodle chat board providing the narrative between characters, it’s the ultimate in unreliable narrator-led plot! Full of twists and turns, this one follows students on a MA course in multimedia art.
We get snippets from Gela (tutor), and then students Jem, Cameron, Jonathan, Patrick, Ludya and Alyson, alongside the External Examiners who are reading the messages to work out if everything is above board on this new course. They’re commissioned to make a piece of art for a company and have to go through the steps of pitching, marketing and then making the piece alongside written assignments in which they are to reflect on themselves and their art. But of course, we get their messages to the public forums, private messages to each other which are a lot more subversive and backstabbing and lot of POVs that don’t all tell quite the same version of events.
A couple of the twists in this book I did see coming but there were a couple that I really did not see at all. One was a complete OMG moment, and it usually takes a lot for me to not see a twist at all. I even had to go back and check details afterwards!
If you loved The Appeal, it’s a familiar layout and an equally excellent plot. I loved
We get snippets from Gela (tutor), and then students Jem, Cameron, Jonathan, Patrick, Ludya and Alyson, alongside the External Examiners who are reading the messages to work out if everything is above board on this new course. They’re commissioned to make a piece of art for a company and have to go through the steps of pitching, marketing and then making the piece alongside written assignments in which they are to reflect on themselves and their art. But of course, we get their messages to the public forums, private messages to each other which are a lot more subversive and backstabbing and lot of POVs that don’t all tell quite the same version of events.
A couple of the twists in this book I did see coming but there were a couple that I really did not see at all. One was a complete OMG moment, and it usually takes a lot for me to not see a twist at all. I even had to go back and check details afterwards!
If you loved The Appeal, it’s a familiar layout and an equally excellent plot. I loved
Content Warnings
Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, Death, Suicide, Grief, Murder