Gela Nathanial has a plan, and it has to work. She’s a university professor, teaching art in London, and most of her classes have been cancelled. Budgeting, of course. Art just doesn’t seem to be worth the time and expense to the higher ups. So she’s come up with an idea. She’s going to do a master’s level year-long class for a handful of talented art students, and it will focus on helping these artists figure out how to make their art commercial. To that end, the final project will be a physical installation in a business, and Gela has already found a tech company willing to let 6 students work as a team to create the installation as they introduce new cloud-based systems to their clients.

Throughout the course, there are several smaller projects and essays that are due. Some of the projects are designed to help the artists hone skills they already have, and others are to learn new skills through collaboration. They are graded on their essays and art projects, and on the final project they will also be judged on how they work with the group. After the course, an outside examiner will look over the entirety of the correspondence for the course to decide if the final grades are fair. Much of the communication between the students and with Gela are through the school’s intranet, so the examiner will have all of those messages, the writeups of Gela grading the art projects, and the essays written by the students as they work on their projects.

The students were hand-chosen by Gela and represent a wide variety of artists. Jem is a recent B.A. graduate who specializes in sculpture and soundscapes. Patrick is the owner of an art supply store with a penchant for drawing and the hope to one day make a living of art in his native Ireland. Jonathan is a gallery owner who wants to develop his artistic side. Alyson is a working artist who needs the course less than the others but is bringing credibility to the course. Cameron is a corporate burnout wanting to find a new career. And Ludya is a single mom and graphic designer who is looking to expand her client list. So it’s a mix of professional artists and amateurs, educated and not, and they all have to find ways to work together to make it through the course successfully.

But as the examiner is making his way through all the documents, he realizes that somewhere along the way, things went wrong in this course. Very wrong. He decides to rush to where the art students are about to unveil their installation because, based on what he has read in the messages, he thinks one or more of the art students may be in mortal danger.

The Examiner is the latest novel from master storyteller Janice Hallett. The story is told in documents—the messages between the art students, the notes from the Gela, texts, personal essays, and letters written by the students, so the reader is taking the same journey as the examiner. First we get to know the students and hear about how the strong personalities are meshing (or not). Then the story changes in small ways that show there is more going on than just an art course. But by the time you figure out what’s going on, you’re in so deep you can’t put the book aside. You have to know the whole story.

Hallett’s plotting just gets better and better, and she hides clues to the truth in plain sight, where you see them but don’t realize their importance until later. The way she layers the story is ingenious. She is in control of the story the entire way, leading you up stairs slowly and carefully, and you don’t even realize how high you’ve gone up until you open a door at the end and realize you’re falling into space. It’s a soft landing, because all the clues are there. She’s strapped a parachute to you without your even realizing it, so you drift back down as he shock wears off. Or if you’re a more literal person, this book is fantastic! There are so many surprises to this story, they just keep coming. There is a strong creepy factor to some of the crimes, so if you are sensitive to that, be careful with this one. But it’s so worth it for you to power through. This one will stay with me for a long time.

Egalleys for The Examiner were provided by Atria Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.