The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett

Started: 14.12.25

Finished: 20.12.25

Paperback

I didn't enjoy this one as much as The Appeal. It was a similar format; this time, there were transcriptions of audio files which had been recorded on an old mobile phone. The typed transcriptions had been sent to a Professor by an Inspector, asking for their opinion on the subject matter. The Inspector explained how the transcription service sometimes got words wrong, and also included a key to what certain punctuation meant. This was a slightly clunky way of also letting the reader know about the mistakes.

The person making the recordings was an ex-con called Steve, who was 'speaking aloud' to his probation officer, Maxine. He was explaining about the crime that got him sent to prison for 11 years, but also talking about something that happened in his youth. He believed that a teacher had gone missing, and he was trying to get in touch with old school friends to find out if they could remember what happened. In amongst all this was a story about some children's books which were written by someone called Edith Twyford, which were believed to contain a hidden code referring to gold bullion that was misplaced during the second world war. 

I found the different storylines all a bit confusing, and the transcriptions, with all the misspellings and punctuations meaning someone paused, or breathed out etc, not very easy to read. 

It turned out in the end that Maxine was actually Max Ian, the professor, and Steve's son, who he'd hardly had any contact with over the years. The Twyford Code was really invented by Steve, in order to tell his son where to find gold that was stolen in the robbery that he went to prison for. I'm not really sure where the WW2 stolen gold came into it at all.

Not bad, but not great. I wonder if this is going to be Janice Hallett's style in all her books? The Appeal was emails, this one was audio transcripts, I wonder what she'll do next?