A couple of years ago, I read The Appeal by Janice Hallett and loved how she told that story. When I read the synopsis for The Killer Question, I knew it was time to read another book by this author. This book released earlier this week and today I want to tell you all about it and what I thought. Keep on reading to find out!
A big thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for providing me with an eARC to read and review. This doesn’t affect my opinion in any way.
Janice Hallett, “the new queen of crime” (Electric Literature), returns with a fresh, edge-of-your-seat mystery that takes place at a pub’s weekly trivia night, revealed through quiz categories, phone messages, and email correspondence.
Sue and Mal Eastwood run an isolated rural pub called The Case is Altered where a weekly trivia game has revived its flagging fortunes—that is, until a body is found in the nearby river. Soon after, a mysterious new team arrives and shakes up the diverse field of regulars by scoring top marks in every round…every week.
Meanwhile, Sue and Mal have a secret of their own. Before arriving here, they were caught up in a secret police operation which meant they had to leave town—and whatever happened back then seems to have finally caught up with them.
Five years later, the pub lies derelict, and their nephew Dominic is determined to make a documentary about their story. What happened at this unassuming pub? And can a single question really kill?
Review
If I find out a book is told through emails, text messages, or any other mixed media, I’m sold! Even though I don’t go to pubs to participate in trivia nights, I do find them interesting. The Killer Question is a book I read in one sitting and loved every minute of it. I also loved that this book also felt like a story inside of a story. In the end I wasn’t able to figure out the twists and that made me very happy. I didn’t see anything coming.
Mal and Sue host weekly trivia nights at their pub and the groups that visit are very competitive. A new group starts participating every week and that makes some of the locals upset when they start winning. Tension runs a bit high and they get very invested in this new group. That’s not all though, because a dead body is found near the pub. We also know that their nephew is in talks with Netflix to get a documentary done about this case. All of these things together give us a very interesting book.
There are some unexpected twists that don’t make this book feel like it’s close to 500 pages long. It’s hard to really talk about this book without giving too much away when it comes to the mystery. I will say some characters are more likable than others, haha. If you enjoy mysteries and trivia nights, I highly recommend The Killer Question!
The Killer Question reminded me again how much I love books being told through mixed media. I’ll definitely be reading the other books by this author I haven’t read yet. Do you enjoy books told this way? Do you have any recommendations? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!
