The Appeal by Janice Hallett

 

In a town full of secrets... Someone was murdered. Someone went to prison. And everyone's a suspect. Can you uncover the truth?

Dear Reader - enclosed are all the documents you need to solve a case. It starts with the arrival of two mysterious newcomers to the small town of Lockwood, and ends with a tragic death. Someone has already been convicted of this brutal murder and is currently in prison, but we suspect they are innocent. What's more, we believe far darker secrets have yet to be revealed.

Throughout the Fairway Players' staging of All My Sons and the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick's life-saving medical treatment, the murderer hid in plain sight. Yet we believe they gave themselves away. In writing. The evidence is all here, between the lines, waiting to be discovered. Will you accept the challenge? Can you uncover the truth?

I wish I had jumped into this book sooner! It’s been on my shelves for a while and I just thought why not try it. Well by gosh was it good! I was addicted after reading the first few pages. The book is written so different to anything I’ve ever read before. It’s all documents, emails, and conversations, and you have to really read into them to figure out what’s going on and who done what. But its so cleverly done too, I had no idea what the ending was going to be at all, and no I did not figure it out! There are so many different ways you could go after evading the correspondence, but I guarantee you’ll have fun trotting to guess.

If you haven’t already read this one. I suggest you do. I went out the day after I finished it and bought Janice’s second book The Twyford Code! Massive 5 stars from me on this one.

The Tattoo Thief by Alison Belsham

When Brighton tattoo artist Marni Mullins discovers a flayed body, newly-promoted DI Francis Sullivan needs her help. There's a serial killer at large, slicing tattoos from his victims' bodies while they're still alive. Marni knows the tattooing world like the back of her hand, but has her own reasons to distrust the police. So when she identifies the killer's next target, will she tell Sullivan or go after the Tattoo Thief alone?

This was Tsundoku Squad’s June book, so our 6th read together. 

This was a fast paced, easy to read book. Marni seemed pretty bad ass if I’m honest, I liked her character and enjoyed the tattooing aspect of it, I’m a big fan of tattoos. It was a bit predictable at times though, and I think a few of us guessed certain things at one point or another. Sullivan seems a bit arrogant I though but I warmed up to him a bit throughout.

But it was also a bit gory. There are parts where the Killer speaks, and those are the parts I enjoyed the most. It gave the book an edge I thought, and I honestly thought I’d have given it less stars if those bits hadn’t been there. 

A good read, easy to read (I read each weeks part while I was on the exercise bike!), and I’ll more than likely read book 2 and see if the story carries on.

I gave the book 3 and half stars but rounded up to 4 on Goodreads (as they still don’t do half stars grrr). 

Check out Em’s collective round up and review here: REVIEW