The Killer Question, Janice Hallett

We open with an email to a television producer and learn that its sender, Dominic Eastwood, has a story to share about his aunt and uncle.

Landlords Sue and Mal run a weekly pub quiz at their rural pub, The Case Is Altered. One week, a new team named The Shadow Knights attends: they are brilliant, yet seem socially off-kilter. Worst of all, they decimate the regular teams with encyclopedic levels of general knowledge (cue for a hilarious subplot as cheating allegations fly!). The Shadow Knight's arrival coincides with a body being found in the river next to The Case Is Altered. The mystery plays out in epistolary form, through fragments of more emails, Whatsapp messages, and social media groups.

I could not believe how clever and gripping this was.

I remember the author, Janice Hallett, expressed that she was mindful about how this format of storytelling could potentially detract from building three-dimensional characters. I can see how this could have been a pitfall in the hands of another writer, but Hallett's command of linguistic nuance means this isn't even close to being a problem. In fact, her characters are more well-forged than most conventional-form books, their voices clear, sympathetic, and often hilarious.

There is a mouth-dropping twist at the end, in response to which I exclaimed, 'No!!!' aloud.

Goodreads review:

Absolutely fantastic fun! I gasped audibly at the big reveal... shocking and ludicrously clever! I'm writing this review a good few months after reading and these characters are still very clear and alive in my mind, which is impressive, considering the epistolary form. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.