Like her previous novel, The Appeal, this book is a triumph, and highly entertaining. It is presented as a series of documents, featuring emails, WhatsApp exchanges and SMS messages from a number of characters, all of whom have been involved in the events surrounding the production of a community pantomime by the amateur dramatic society in the small town of Lockwood.

As with the earlier book, a bundle of papers is delivered to two young paralegals in a firm of solicitors, and they are invited to study them with no prior knowledge of the case or its context, and see what conclusions they come to.

The plot revolves around the actions and jealousies found among the members of the Lockwood Amateur Dramatic Society. The correspondence is cleverly presented – we don’t always see both sides of an exchange, and all sorts of sub stories emerge.

The characterisation is great, too. All in all, this works wonderfully – far more effectively than my clumsy synopsis might suggest - , and all sorts of subplots and strained relationships emerge. When I first encountered the book, I had my doubts about the format, wondering whether it might simply be gimmicky. That could not be further from the truth. The drip feed of information, like an old fashioned epistolatory novel, works excellently.

Janice Hallett manages the plot adeptly, too, and I lost count of the unexpected twists and turns, all of them entirely plausible. ( )

We travel back to Lower Lockwood in this novella to witness the Fairway Players preparing for their Christmas play. This year Jack and the Beanstalk was selected and the monies raised are allocated to pay for a new roof for the church. It is helpful and advised that you read the first book, The Appeal, as it will explain all the changes that have occurred resulting in additional cast of characters. The fallout from the dead body discovered in book 1 has tremendous impact on the Fairway Players Group.

The story is told mainly through emails and text messages between the characters. As can be expected there are several people who don't particularly like one another but have to endure for the sake of the charity play. Celia Halliday has emailed the Players regarding necessary information for the auditions and rehearsals. It wouldn't be interesting without new members and the petty trash talking amongst the crew. There is a lot confusion with this amateur group as they attempt to save money by purchasing candy from a recently paroled friend and tracking down the mysterious beanstalk which seems to have "disappeared" since it was last used. Just as they hold their breath hoping all goes well the night of the performance, a dead body makes an appearance onstage that has everyone looking like a suspect. Again, lawyers Femi and Charlotte are there to investigate the situation including the emails and texts with the police reports to identify the victim and killer. ( )

Santa Claus and the Beanstalk
Combined review of the Simon & Schuster audiobook & the Atria Books hardcover editions (October 24, 2023).

I was only so-so about the first book The Appeal (2021), rating it with 3-stars and reviewing it as Who is Grifting Whom?. I was intrigued enough about the possible tie-ins to Arthur Miller's All My Sons (1947) to seek out the play and review it as Researching 'The Appeal'.

My issue with the first book was that it just seemed so completely improbable that two articling students would be asked to go through so much private correspondence about a case by their mentoring lawyer in search of answers to the 'clues' he provided. It was still inventive enough to keep me reading though.

When I was looking for some themed reads for the holiday season, noticed that The Christmas Appeal had been recently released. I thought I'd give it a go on audio, but found it hard to follow in that medium, even though the narrators were fine. I switched to the hardcover and ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

You again have to suspend belief and just accept that Roderick Tanner (QC Retired) still has access to all this private correspondence and that lawyers Femi and Charlotte have all this time to spend reading it. As with The Appeal, the new book consists of texts, WhatsApp chats, emails and the occasional letter between the (mostly) same cast of the amateur theatrical group The Fairway Players who are now staging a Christmas pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk, in order to raise funds for a church roof renovation.

For the longest time it is not even evident that any crime has occurred. The correspondence is tracking the efforts of Sarah-Jane and Kevin Macdonald to produce the pantomime while being constantly undermined by rival Celia Halliday, who resents being voted out of the leadership of the theatrical society. The bitchiness is the main focus until the actual night of the performance when a mummified dead body dressed as Santa Claus is revealed to be inside the beanstalk. Did it get there by misadventure or by murder?

I enjoyed The Christmas Appeal primarily for its lighter tone and shorter length. I didn't think it required reading the previous book, although the novella does have aspects which might be considered spoilery if you still plan to read the original novel afterwards. I definitely think that reading a print copy would be preferred over an audio version in both cases. The cast of characters is too large to follow otherwise. ( )

The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett is hard for me to give a solid opinion on. I enjoy novels (or novella in this case) that use documents such as emails to tell the story, and the inherent humor whenever you're privy to the bickering that goes on in any community makes for a fun read. But I just never completely connected.

Maybe my problem is I haven't read The Appeal so I don't have a foundation with the characters on which to start. I also think I found some of the bickering to be a bit too unrealistic to me. I'm grasping at straws here, I did enjoy the book but I never really gave the characters a second thought after I finished, which is unusual for me. Characters usually live in my head for at least a couple days after finishing a book, which can get crowded if I finish a couple books at the same time. But none of these stayed for more than a few minutes.

I would recommend this to readers who want a light humorous and short read, as long as you understand it is told through emails and texts. If you don't like this style of storytelling, maybe skip it.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss. ( )