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

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Is there any truth in the story behind the Twyford Code or is it just a myth or a figment of the author’s imagination? Is Miss Isle’s disappearance truly linked to The Twyford Code? Who are the people trying to prevent Steven from uncovering the truth? Can he trust his friends or do they know more than they are letting on?

Nevertheless, due to the interest that Steven and the other four students in her remedial English class showed in studying a banned book, Miss Isles dedicated some lesson time to reading passages from Six on Goldtop Hill, and here Hallett delivers some delightfully funny pastiches of the most sexist aspects of Enid Blyton’s oeuvre. It turned out that Miss Isles was actually quite the expert on Twyford, particularly the conspiracy theory that alleged the writer had used her books to send secret coded messages to the enemy during World War II.

Comments (4)

It's all a muddled mess in Steven's hazy memories, but after being released from a stint in prison, he is determined to discover what the truth is about that day. What happened to Miss Isles?

The one thing I can say about this book before you start is to have patience. There were a couple of times around 40-50% in that I started to glaze over and wonder if powering through would be worth it. When I got to the end I came to the conclusion that it absolutely was worth it. 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! 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 am sure in the minority for this one, but unfortunately, The Twyford Code didn't work for me. At all.

Through a series of audio recordings, a former felon recounts his attempts to solve a literary code that may lead to stolen gold…or maybe that's all a red herring. Forty years ago, Steven "Smithy" Smith found a copy of a famous children's book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. When he showed it to his remedial English teacher Miss Iles, she believed that it was part of a secret code that ran through all of Twyford's novels. And when she disappeared on a class field trip, Smithy became convinced that she had been right. Well that was a bit sneaky and very clever! I really didn’t like her first book and dreaded reading this but I ended up enjoying it a lot. Hallett doesn’t want to tell her stories in the traditional way - the first one was told through a series WhatsApp messages and didn’t work for me, but this story is told as transcripts of recorded voice messages and it works much better.

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A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

A clever book, some might say too clever, indefinite props for originality. Different format, each entry preceded by time and date. A mystery within a mystery. Literature containing a code with some kind of treasure at the end. ChAracters that are playing a part, but.which part is real? Which not? A missing person, did she ever actually exist? A quest, but for what reason? Harry Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer team up to exonerate a woman who’s already served five years for killing her ex-husband.Dad worked in a video shop. It might sound archaic, but videos were like the mobile phones of the 80s and 90s. He considered himself a bit of a yuppy. Mum worked in an office for the gas board. I was a big fan of Hallett’s The Appeal. This book, not so much. For starters, it was very strange. There were large swaths when I just felt confused. You know that feeling that things just aren’t making sense but you can’t put your finger on why not? That was me. Another reviewer made a point about seeing this book through to the end. I heartily second that. The Twyford Code turned my brain inside out. It totally foxed me. So clever and totally brilliant' - Lisa Hall, author of The Party The story is told in transcripts, so instead of chapter headings you are given dates and times. The story is recorded on a phone and then transcribed by a computer program. This causes some anomalies but there are reasons for these. By listening to the story it felt like actually listening to the recordings rather than reading the transcripts.