The book is narrated by Steven Smith, an ex-con who’s taken up recording voice logs in an old cellphone given to him by his son. Steven is a reflective soul, and before long he’s recounting his life. He was in a remedial English class taught by one Alice Iles, along with four other students. One day, he brought a book to class that he found on a bus: Six on Goldtop Hill by Edith Twyford, a famous children’s book author whose works have been silently banned from schools due to outdated language and offensive portrayals. Still, Miss Iles reads it to the fascinated class, and seems interested herself in the notes inside the book and some scribbles in the margins. And eventually decides to take them to Twyford’s beachside home where…
Well, Steven doesn’t remember. Just that somehow, all of the kids made it home, but Miss Iles was never seen again. Her disappearance has bothered Steven for years, and he sets out to reconnect with his old classmates, hoping for answers. Instead, he meets with stonewalling, a refusal to talk. When he does start to find answers, they prove to be the cover of a rabbit hole. It seems that there are rumors that Edith Twyford put a code into her works, leading to…something. No one knows what. But Steven starts to wonder if Miss Iles didn’t come close to cracking it. And so, he sets out on a treasure hunt, hoping to find closure at the end of the road.
But the readers already know that his logs were recovered from an iPhone, evidence in a missing person’s case…
Like The Appeal, The Twyford Code is an epistolary novel, but instead of emails, it’s voice logs and phone calls. Hallett has some fun with this. The transcription software has a habit of mixing up words, meaning that readers have to read carefully to figure out what people are actually saying. It gives the characters more distinctive voices (literally) than in The Appeal. The idea of a code hidden in the works of a children’s book author that’s also connected to a mysterious disappearance is like catnip to me. Cynical readers might suspect that this whole “code” is nothing more than a wild goose chase, populated by poor, sad people who have nothing better to do than obsess over hidden messages. Indeed, some of the characters quickly go off the deep end with the possible meanings of the code. But there are two men in black who seem to be stalking Steven and have little problem using violence. And there’s just enough weird stuff along the way to keep Steven—and the reader—hooked.
It’s fair to say that this is more of a puzzle thriller than a fair-play mystery like The Appeal was. Some of the mysteries, like how the kids got home, don’t really have satisfying answers, hinging on Steven’s convenient amnesia. But the book works overall. The last bit of the book is the best part, containing a certain trope that’s not super common but that I love: a seemingly unconnected side character has to go through the in-universe narrative and piece together what in the world happened. When we get the bevy of plot twists at the end, I was impressed to see that most of them have some form of hinting, even if it’s off-hand comments that come up once. The titular Code is the highlight. You can solve it, though I’d be surprised if most did so. It reminds me of an alternate reality game, in that you are absolutely going to have to get out Google to get anywhere. This is a book that is better as an eBook with in-text searching, which will make it easier to find the necessary terms. But the reveal of what the Code actually is is very staying. Hallett fly’s very close to a plot twist that normally would annoy me greatly, but she makes it work.
The only thing that kind of bothered me isn’t really Hallett’s fault: I assumed she was going to do more with Twyford—who’s obviously a take on Enid Blyton—and the idea of texts that aren’t, like, vile but contain stuff that’s totally inappropriate for a modern generation, but she doesn’t’ actually do anything with those themes. This might have been the fault of the reviews I read leading me to expect that. This is more of a tribute to Blyton, a grown-up version of one of her novels.
But all in all, I liked The Twyford Code. It’s a good puzzle thriller that toys with the common plot devices of conspiracy thrillers while still giving the reader something genuine to work out. While I don’t quite know if this would, ahem, appeal to all mystery fans, if you want something a little different, or just enjoy Hallett as an author, this is Recommended
Other Reviews: The Invisible Event, crossexaminingcrime, Ah, Sweet Mystery, In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel.
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