“[A} mystery as clever as any Dame Agatha ever devised. This will delight the author’s fans.”
—Publishers Weekly
Description
From “modern Agatha Christie” (The Sunday Times) Janice Hallett, a follow-up to her blockbuster novel The Appeal, featuring the Fairway Players as they find themselves embroiled in murder, blackmail, and betrayal as they mount their latest theatrical production.
Welcome back to Lower Lockwood. The Fairway Players return with Sarah-Jane and Kevin MacDonald as committee cochairs. This year, they have chosen to stage Agatha Christie’s The Hollow. But auditions aren’t their only problem: Sarah-Jane’s sister, Nicky-Rose, is suddenly back in town under mysterious circumstances, having sold her home in Barbados, left her business providing entertainment on cruise ships, and moved back into their mother Carol’s house.
As always, they’re short on men, and new Player Fran Elroy-Jones enlists a young married couple and the husband’s cousin to join. But no one wants to play the part of the hated Gerda, leaving Kevin and Sarah-Jane with no option but to reach out to an old member they know would be happy to perform in any role.
As with any production, tensions run high, and our intrepid lawyers Femi and Charlotte are tasked with uncovering exactly what happened on the opening night of The Hollow—and whether the correct person has taken the blame.
Reviews
“Fans familiar with Hallett’s quirky epistolary style—the entire story is told via texts, WhatsApp messages, and emails—will know to expect guffaws, surprises, cringe-worthy moments, high drama, and catastrophe… Readers will be just as puzzled as the two lawyers charged with figuring out the truth and bringing the baddies to justice—until all the clues fall into place and the curtain falls on another successful Fairway production.”
—Booklist
"Hallett writes another tightly wound whodunit told via emails and text messages as in The Appeal and deftly adapts her storyline to mimic the style of Christie’s play, making this a clever and very entertaining read."
—Library Journal
