The Twyford Code: Winner of the Crime and Thriller British Book of the Year

Product Information

Once again, there was too much repetition and the rehash/summation at the end was excruciatingly tedious. It felt exactly like Teacher showing us how to solve a math equation and having to show our work. Preserve me from all math professors... Oie!!! ZZZZzzzzzz! That was tough going! While this plot leads in many directions, the reveal won me over! It is actually one of the best twists I have read in a long time! If you stay with the long journey to the truth, you will be rewarded!

This book began a series of books that took brain power to interpret and even then the meaning remained elusive. The other books that I place with this one I have already read but not yet reviewed. Kind of serendipitous that they came one after another. Maybe the fates knew I needed to immerse myself in something,a diversion to my reality. There are 200 files in total. We utilised specialist software and processed them in batches to speed up the transcription process. A key to this follows, along with the text. You will notice the transcription is phonetic, so spelling and grammar are quirky to say the least. On a number of occasions the software "mishears" or simply approximates words and phrases, especially when speech is in the vernacular. For instance, the phrase "must have" is frequently transcribed as "mustard." "Going to" becomes "gun a" and the town of Bournemouth is referred to variously as "bore mouth," "Bormuth," "bore moth" and "boar mouth." You will soon become accustomed to this and it should not interfere with your understanding of the material. Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children's book, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. He took it to his remedial English teacher, Miss Isles, who became convinced it was the key to solving a puzzle. That a message in secret code ran through all Edith Twyford's novels. Then Miss Isles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven's memory won't allow him to remember what happened. Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Steven decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. Was Miss Iles murdered? Was she deluded? Or was she right about the code? And is it still in use today?

In spite of not being necessarily blown away by the plot, I found the use of mixed media to tell the entire story impressive. I knew she was an author that I would want to read more from. The Twyford Code is out in January. It’s about a former prisoner who, at the behest of his probation officer and to occupy his time now he is going straight, looks into an episode from his childhood where his English teacher took his remedial English class out for the day and then disappeared. The Appeal is an ensemble piece; The Twyford Code is one character’s personal journey. And I’m working on a third book for 2023 and have a deal for another two novels. I loved The Appeal last year, but I do think that it and this book had one thing in common which was that it got pretty bogged down in the middle, although the payoff was great. The answer is – for me – not quite. There is so much to love about ‘The Twyford Code’ and I found it compelling and fascinating. However, I think I found it more far-fetched than Hallett’s original book and harder to relax into – it definitely is a challenge to keep up with the plot twists and revelations and I did find myself lost a couple of times. I’d still recommend it highly – get a paper copy, clear the diary and lose yourself in a very clever story!

After The Appeal, Janice Hallett once again gives us an unusual angle in the mystery genre in this wonderfully riveting, full of heart, a puzzle of a story. Here we are given transcripts of voice recordings made on a old IPhone 4, with all the fun of decyphering what is meant with some words and phrases in the narrative. Steven Smith has recently been released after a long stretch in prison, having suffered the loss of his wife and is estranged from a son who gave him the IPhone. For 40 years, Steve has been obsessed with the mystery of the disappearance of his remedial English teacher, Miss Isles. He had found a book on the bus, it was by Edith Twyford, a writer, similar to Enid Blyton, who had gone out of fashion, deemed to be xenophobic. Miss Isles reads the book to the class, but takes the book, never returning it to him, convinced it contains a puzzle and secret codes. I then listened to it for hours will cleaning and doing my standard Saturday errands. It's all a haze. When I tell you I fell down a rabbit hole with this one, I'm not joking. Yikes, this was enthralling. We all remember things in our own way, she smiles, and we’re all correct…it’s emotional truth that matters. I could probably reread this book and STILL NOT follow the code inside, but when everything is revealed it was NOT AT ALL what I expected it to be, and OH SO SURPRISING!!

Comments (4)

There are about 200 audio transcript files made by Steven Smith on an old iPhone. These recordings are supposed to be made for his parole officer, Maxine. He was recently released from prison after 11 years, serving time for murder. He tells the sad story of his home life and drifting into a life of crime with a notorious criminal family. He also is preoccupied with something that happened 40 years earlier. My involvement has been lifelong. I joined the Raglan Players – based in Northolt in west London where I still live – when I was 14. I met my partner there. I’ve done everything from prompting to props to wardrobe. I’ve directed, written plays for them, been in plays. I’ve served behind the bar, cleaned up after… it’s an all-encompassing hobby. But we’ve found, like a lot of amateur drama groups, that we can’t generate new members. In the 21st century, people don’t want to go out to take part in that kind of hobby. The Raglan Players, sadly, folded in 2013. The novel is my love letter to them – though some people might say it’s a strange love letter. Then the content: the part about the Twyford code almost reads like a children's book, like in which the codes are hidden. It's a treasure hunt for adults and it is satisfyingly intriguing. It got me reading sentences again to try to decipher possible hidden acrostics - and you will too. If an unsettling, furious and challenging novel about the breakdown of a marriage doesn’t exactly sound like a summer read, it’s to Catherine Riley’s credit that she makes her debut so compelling and authentic. This bifurcated narrative, told from the perspective of both people in a once passionate, now toxic relationship, means that the reader’s understanding of fault, control – even abuse – is constantly, adeptly manipulated. Riley never reveals the gender of one of the parties either, another layer deepening her complex, provocative ideas about love and betrayal. Raw – but brilliantly so. A Working-Class Family Ages Badly

Desperate to recover his memories and find out what really happened to Miss Iles, Steven revisits the people and places of his childhood. But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn’t just a writer of forgotten children’s stories. The Twyford Code has great power, and he isn’t the only one trying to solve it…. My Review of the Twyford Code I listened to the audio book which I think enhanced the experience (until the end, where I had to rewind the last 30 seconds about 5 times, but you won’t get why unless you read/listen for yourself so I won’t spoil it for you.)Steve Smith has just been released from prison after an eleven year spell for murder. Illiterate when he went in, he’s learnt to read and write and is determined not to return to his former life of crime. Known as Little Smithy to his friends (as opposed to his father, Smithy, and his brother, big Smithy), he also wants to solve the mystery of what happened to his favourite high school Remedial English teacher, Alice Isles, who disappeared on a day trip to Cornwall with his class. The Twyford Code is the new National Treasure! It is a highly complex, imaginative, and clever mystery, where nothing is what it seems. The unique format of this book makes it very original. Initially, I thought the audio files would lend itself to a fast read, but instead, i found it difficult to get through. The transcription includes many awkward breaks and frequently jumps around from topic to topic. Ultimately, the reader is led on a journey into the mind of an ex-con, whose ultimate goal may not be what it seems. Another innovative take on epistolary novel storytelling sees The Twyford Code being mostly told in transcripts of voice recordings and messages, and it works so very well in so many ways. Stephen 'Little Smithy' Smith has served his time in prison and now truly on the straight and narrow, he visits his childhood friends trying to find out what really happened to their amazing teacher on an unofficial school trip over three decades previously. He, his friends and others get caught up in the mystery that puzzled their teacher all the years ago, the mystery of the Twyford Code. fulfilling my 2022 goal to read one book each month that was not published in my country that i wanted badly enough to have a copy shipped to me from abroad and then...never read.