sudden death
The pub quizmaster is king. There is no questioning him. His decision is final. Or hers, but this story is about the quiz at The Case Is Altered, so the quizmaster is Mal Eastwood. He and his wife Sue run the rural pub, where Mal is deeply devoted to his quiz. He writes it himself every week, and he takes umbrage at anyone trying to cheat. So when the bloke with the orange puffy jacket came in with his quiz group, Mal noticed right away and ran the whole group off. They’d been warned in their group chat with other local pubs that the group had been making the rounds and cheating, so Mal cut them off as soon as they walked in.
But when that same guy in the orange puffy jacket showed up weeks later, in the river down a dark lane from the pub, no one expected what the investigation would turn up.
The nephew of the Eastwoods’ is wanting to reopen the pub after it sat dark for five years. Dominic thinks that the story of the pub, the man in the orange puffy jacket, and Mal and Sue Eastwood should be told, so he’s been shopping the story around to agents, producers, and television networks who specialize in true crime. He’s finally found someone interested, so he’s giving up his story little by little. At first, he sends documents about how his uncle and aunt took over a small country pub and became known for their quiz. Then, he sends what he has about Mal and Sue and their previous careers, as police officers, and specifically about a kidnapping case they had worked on.
Throughout this story, there is the pub quiz. While Mal had been quick to kick out the group known as cheaters, another group shows up and disrupts their usual teams. The Shadow Knights showed up out of nowhere and started getting the highest scores each week. They are not on their phones (which is not allowed during the quiz), so Mal can’t figure out if they’re cheating, and if they are, how they’re cheating. But the other teams complain and try to recruit new players to their teams, upsetting the long-time balance of the weekly quiz.
As more information comes out about the Eastwoods and their time as police officers, there are more questions about the body that had appeared in the river. And when the final quiz comes to an end with a tie, Mal pulls out the one question that could cause everything they had worked for to unravel as the killer is finally named in that sudden death round.
Janice Hallett is back with The Killer Question, a layered story of mystery after mystery, told in snippets of text messages, police interviews, quiz score sheets, emails, and investigation notes. There are secrets within secrets and a slow reveal of the complicated plotting, like a puzzle slowing coming together to reveal a hidden picture.
I love to read mysteries and thrillers, and I have yet to find another author who can put together such a sophisticated story with this epistolary style. Hallett is a masterful storyteller, dropping clues like breadcrumbs in a story within a story within a story. I am always excited for a new Hallett novel, and when I’ve finished I tend to feel like I should start it all over again, because once I know what she’s done, I want to go back and see how she did it. This book was no different. It’s brilliant and fun to read and has so many reveals that my head was spinning. If you haven’t read any Hallett yet, The Killer Question is a good one to start with. If you have read her books before, then you know the kind of treat you’re in for.
Egalleys for The Killer Question were provided by Atria Books through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.
