However, despite the difficulties, this framework did offer an interesting way to frame the main character, and I thought that Steven really came alive. I could picture this man and hearing him conveying the tale, and there were moments where I genuinely felt sorry for him – there’s an audio file in which he describes himself as just an old man in an old car talking into his son’s old phone, and it’s genuinely quite affecting. We don’t learn too much about many of the other characters, so it’s good that Steven is so well-written (save a few points when he says things that feel unnatural to the character as portrayed). And...... I just didn't love it at all. Still trying to get to grips with why not - it felt like it was trying to be too clever with the final unveiling of what the whole book was about, along with a very confusing (intentionally, I'm sure) mix-up of stories and narratives along the way. In fact, maybe its that the heart of the book is (to me) has an unreliable narrator, and I don't generally get on too well with them??? But I also feel like I was misled a little by the blurbs that were included in my e-book of The Twyford Code. They suggested to me that the book had puzzles to solve and codes to break, so I was literally taking notes the whole time (which will be useful for my Spoiler Discussion). While this plot leads in many directions, the reveal won me over! It is actually one of the best twists I have read in a long time! If you stay with the long journey to the truth, you will be rewarded!

Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Steven decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. Was Miss Isles murdered? Was she deluded? Or was she right about the code? And is it still in use today? Desperate to recover his memories and find out what really happened to Miss Isles, Steven revisits the people and places of his childhood. But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn't just a writer of forgotten children's stories. The Twyford Code has great power, and he isn't the only one trying to solve it... Steve Smith has just been released from prison after an eleven year spell for murder. Illiterate when he went in, he’s learnt to read and write and is determined not to return to his former life of crime. Known as Little Smithy to his friends (as opposed to his father, Smithy, and his brother, big Smithy), he also wants to solve the mystery of what happened to his favourite high school Remedial English teacher, Alice Isles, who disappeared on a day trip to Cornwall with his class. My involvement has been lifelong. I joined the Raglan Players – based in Northolt in west London where I still live – when I was 14. I met my partner there. I’ve done everything from prompting to props to wardrobe. I’ve directed, written plays for them, been in plays. I’ve served behind the bar, cleaned up after… it’s an all-encompassing hobby. But we’ve found, like a lot of amateur drama groups, that we can’t generate new members. In the 21st century, people don’t want to go out to take part in that kind of hobby. The Raglan Players, sadly, folded in 2013. The novel is my love letter to them – though some people might say it’s a strange love letter. Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children’s book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. Wanting to know more, he took it to his English teacher Miss Iles, not realising the chain of events that he was setting in motion. Miss Iles became convinced that the book was the key to solving a puzzle and that a message in secret code ran through all Twyford’s novels. Then Miss Iles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven has no memory of what happened to her. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It really pulls you in, and makes for addictive reading' - Faith Martin, author of A Fatal Truth

A schoolteacher, Miss Iles, vanishes while on a field trip in 1983. Years later, one of her former pupils, Steven, an ex-convict, tries to make sense of her disappearance. This is no straightforward crime caper dredging up an unsolved mystery, however. Instead, Janice Hallett ( The Appeal) cleverly deploys clues in transcriptions of 200 audio files recorded by Steven on his phone. This innovative approach adds heartbreak to the thrill of the chase as he digresses into his life in and out of prison. The Twyford Code is a lot of fun, but Hallett also writes with care and empathy. Is This Love? The majority of the story is made up of quasi-diary entries that our protagonist, Steven Smith, recorded on an old phone gifted to him by his estranged son. There are also conversations, phone and otherwise, with a varied cast. even though i was unable to participate in the investigative part of the experience, i had a ton of fun reading it. The Twyford Code has a better story to it than The Appeal, both because the structure of The Appeal isn't narrative, so it's jagged-by-design, but also The Twyford Code turned out to be more than *just* a mystery; there's a lovely and emotionally-rewarding story at its core THAT I WILL SAY NO MORE ABOUT (...).

When he was 14, Steve found an old children’s book on a bus. He showed it to the teacher who recognised it as one written by Edith Twyford, a popular writer in the 1930s who wrote about a group of six children and their adventures. Despite Twyford’s books now being banned from school libraries because of their inherent racism and sexism, she read it to the class and later took them to Cornwall to visit the locations in the book as well as Edith Twyford’s cottage, before suddenly disappearing and leaving the bewildered children to find their own way home. Dad worked in a video shop. It might sound archaic, but videos were like the mobile phones of the 80s and 90s. He considered himself a bit of a yuppy. Mum worked in an office for the gas board. The narrative of Janice Hallett’s The Twyford Code is presented through a series of 200 audio files that have been recovered and deciphered from an iPhone 4 belonging to Steven Smith, an ex-con recently released from prison after being incarcerated for 11 years. The files have been transcribed using specialized software and though the end result isn't quite perfect, it renders the content not too difficult to understand.Damnnn, that was impressive. A literary treasure hunt the likes of which may never be matched. I am so in awe of this! If you like the sound of The Twyford Code, you might also enjoy Richard Osman’s The Man Who Died Twice or one of the Six Stories novels by Matt Wesolowski. And far more importantly, it was a great read! I did miss some of the variety of voices Hallett gave us in The Appeal: the format here obviously centred on Smithy with occasional ‘guest’ voices. However, those guests were lovely, whether they were his former classmates Paul, Donna, Michelle, Nate or the very obliging librarian, Lucy, who helps him with his phone, his housing, his research and becomes embroiled in his quest. A superb mystery with true heart at its centre. No one does twists quite like Janice Hallett' - Sophie Flynn, author of All My Lies

The story is told in transcripts, so instead of chapter headings you are given dates and times. The story is recorded on a phone and then transcribed by a computer program. This causes some anomalies but there are reasons for these. By listening to the story it felt like actually listening to the recordings rather than reading the transcripts. The son pieces together the story from the transcripts bit by bit until you finally understand what has happened. The one thing I can say about this book before you start is to have patience. There were a couple of times around 40-50% in that I started to glaze over and wonder if powering through would be worth it. When I got to the end I came to the conclusion that it absolutely was worth it. Stephen, the main character, has been released from prison after an 11 year sentence, but why? It’s clever how the story unfolds and how Stephen wants to find out what happened in the past and to re-connect with his son. I’ve read many books in letter or diary form, but transcripts are a new way of communicating a story. All is not how it seems, even transcripts don’t turn out exact. I found the format for The Twyford Code challenging. The story was compiled from transcripts of voice recordings made on an iPhone 4. Some words and phrases were misheard/ altered phonetically, leading to some quirky spelling and parts of sentences lost from the recording. Adding to the difficulty in deciphering errors in the transcriptions, the voices of people speaking are identified only by number. It takes a while to resolve who is included and speaking in those files. There is humour in vague references and mistakes in transcribing the spoken word.

I particularly loved trekking round Madagascar. I went there for the wild life – there are lemurs you can’t see anywhere else on earth and crazy-looking giraffe weevils – but it was the people that most enthralled me. I found it such an education. Recommended for the intricate plotting tied together in an amazing conclusion. The author has proven that she can devise intriguing puzzles in original formats. This is a book I will reread in the future for a better understanding of how the author fits the clues together.