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The novel initially felt a little disjointed to me: the gangland narrative when it came up felt shoe-horned in and an interruption to what felt like the main story; yet Smithy’s history and reasons for his being in prison was relevant to communicate to his estranged son whereas the investigation into Miss Iles’ disappearance was not. The harsh brutality of Smithy’s childhood and family – if we trust his account – and his inculcation into the gang culture felt at odds with the whimsy of the present-day narrative. Never quite dark enough to feel authentic, but bleak enough to jar with the quest for the Twyford Code. The ending changed tone because you are listening instead to Stephen’s Son who is a professor and has received the files from a police officer. (It does state this at the beginning just after the encrypted dedication.) 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 book is told through the 200 transcripts of audio files, recovered from an IPhone 4 and deciphered by a high speed transcription software. Each transcript is a conversation between one to three characters and a key is included to help make sense of words or phrases that may have been misheard. Example: Miss Isles was deciphered as MISSLES. He took it to his remedial English teacher, Miss Isles, who became convinced that it was the key to solving a puzzle-that a message in secret code ran through all of Edith Twyford's novels. She began reading the “banned book” to her class-convinced that the book was meant to find its way to her. When he showed it to his remedial English teacher Miss Iles, she believed that it was part of a secret code that ran through all of Twyford’s novels. And when she disappeared on a class field trip, Smithy became convinced that she had been right. I noted that I gave the author top marks for thinking outside the box and getting super creative with her format, but that the story itself was just average for me. It was solid, but it wasn't great.There are about 200 audio transcript files made by Steven Smith on an old iPhone. These recordings are supposed to be made for his parole officer, Maxine. He was recently released from prison after 11 years, serving time for murder. He tells the sad story of his home life and drifting into a life of crime with a notorious criminal family. He also is preoccupied with something that happened 40 years earlier. This book uses transcripts of messages recorded by the main protagonist, Steven Smith. He is a man with a shady past who is working to solve a mystery that has haunted him since his schooldays when his teacher, Miss Iles, disappeared on a school trip. The key to uncovering the truth seems to lie with his remedial English class and a children’s novel by now-disgraced writer Edith Twyford that holds a code. As Steven visits the people and places from his past, it becomes obvious that the Twyford Code is bigger than he could have imagined…
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.
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Through a series of audio recordings, a former felon recounts his attempts to solve a literary code that may lead to stolen gold…or maybe that's all a red herring. Another innovative take on epistolary novel storytelling sees The Twyford Code being mostly told in transcripts of voice recordings and messages, and it works so very well in so many ways. Stephen 'Little Smithy' Smith has served his time in prison and now truly on the straight and narrow, he visits his childhood friends trying to find out what really happened to their amazing teacher on an unofficial school trip over three decades previously. He, his friends and others get caught up in the mystery that puzzled their teacher all the years ago, the mystery of the Twyford Code.
Once again, there was too much repetition and the rehash/summation at the end was excruciatingly tedious. It felt exactly like Teacher showing us how to solve a math equation and having to show our work. Preserve me from all math professors... Oie!!! ZZZZzzzzzz! That was tough going! If you enjoy books that present puzzles inside of puzzles, ones that carve out a subtle and affecting mystery, this is the book for you. Just remember to have patience and see it through to the conclusion because you need to see the big picture of the puzzle. This is a prime example of how a slow burn turns into a delightful surprise. 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? When I read Janice Hallett's release, The Appeal, in January of 2022, I gave the book a rating of 3.5-stars.Was the author a spy sending messages through her children’s books during WW2? Did Miss Isles get too close to uncovering the truth? A] wonderful novel, which may start like James Joyce rewriting Agatha Christie with anagrams and acrostics, but ends up being a moving, multistory mystery about the power of books and paternal/parental love." - The Times (UK)
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