"The Christmas Appeal" is a 2023 mystery novel written by Janice Hallett, a sequel to her debut novel, The Appeal
Four years after solving the murder of one of the Fairway Players, lawyers Femi and Charlotte are once again tasked with solving a mystery surrounding the Amateur Theatre troupe. The events of the previous novels have left a power vacuum in the Fairway Players, and there is much animosity behind the scenes of their Christmas production of "Jack and the Beanstalk." When a body is unveiled onstage, it's up to Femi and Charlotte to sift through emails and messages to identify both the victim and the killer.
Warning: as this is a Crime Fiction mystery with many twists, expect spoilers below.
The Christmas Appeal provides examples of:
- All Part of the Show: The Fairway Players' production of "Jack and the Beanstalk" goes horribly wrong. Two actors are drunk onstage, an actress gets stuck in a set piece, then said set piece splits in two, and a body tumbles out and onto the stage. The audience assumes that this is all part of the show, and leave rave reviews.
- Accidental Murder: Joyce shuts her husband into the beanstalk prop and locks the trapdoor, intending to leave him in there overnight to teach him a lesson. When she came back the next day he was dead, having suffocated inside the set-piece overnight.
- Asshole Victim: Ronald Bridge was an alcoholic with multiple domestic violence charges against his wife. No one seems too torn up about his death.
- Body in a Breadbox: During the performance of "Jack and the Beanstalk", the beanstalk set piece splits open, revealing a body that was hidden inside.
- Bookends: The book begins with Celia's Christmas round robin email, sent fairly early on December 1st. It ends with one from Sarah-Jane, sent at the last minute on December 24th.
- Christmas Episode: "The Christmas Appeal" is this for the "Appeal" series, centering around the Fairways putting on a Christmas Pantomime. Additionally, the body at the center of the mystery was wearing a Santa costume.
- Damned by Faint Praise: In her Christmas round robin letter, Celia describes Fairway's production of An Evening with Gary Lineker as "surprisingly watchable."
- Driving Question: What is the identity of the corpse that appeared onstage, and who is the murderer?
- Finally Found the Body: The body of Ronald Bridge is found thirty years after his death, finally bringing answers to all the people who think that he left his wife for another woman. Of course, Joyce and the Walfords knew he was dead the whole time.
- Framing Device: Just like in the previous entry in the series, the crime already took place in 2022. In November 2023, Femi and Charlotte (as well as the reader) are sifting through evidence from the case in order to figure out the identities of both the victim and the murderer.
- His Name Is...: One piece of evidence presented is a transcript of a police interview with Joyce Walford, who claims she knows the identity of the victim. However, the Femi and Charlotte (and thus the reader) are only presented with a partial transcript, which cuts off just before she says the name.
- Hopeless with Tech: Roderick Tanner has quite a bit of trouble operating WhatsApp, accidentally adding an uninvolved friend to their group chat, and sending files repeatedly.
- I Have No Son!: The Hallidays refuse to talk about their son, Peter, who was arrested on drug and assault charges. In her Christmas round-robin letter, she mentions how proud she is of her two children, even though she has three.
- Let Off by the Detective: Femi and Charlotte eventually realize that Joyce purposefully killed Ronnie, and it wasn't an accident as she claimed. Considering Ronnie was an abusive husband, they decide it isn't worth it to drag the Walfords through a trial for a murder that happened 30 years ago..
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Joyce refuses to tarnish the name of her deceased second husband, Harry, by letting him be blamed for Ronnie's death, even if it would mean avoiding blame for the murder.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Sarah-Jane has a conversation with Mick's friend, ordering "green, white, and brown sweets," to pass out at the performance for a total of $19.00. As it turns out, Mick's friend was a drug dealer, and "green, white, and brown sweets" meant cannibis, cocaine, and heroin, and he wanted $1900 as payment.
- Playing Both Sides: Emma sucks up to both Sarah-Jane and the Celia, who are both vying for control of the Fairway Players. On multiple occasions, she sends opposite messages to both, telling Celia she loved her email, and then immediately calling it "passive-aggressive" to Sarah Jane. In another, she tells Sarah-Jane that the beanstalk set piece looks amazing, then three minutes later she tells Celia it looks awful.
- Rebuking the Boast: Celia Halliday's Christmas round robin is full of boasts about her and her family's achievements throughout the year. This includes her daughter taking a break from her studies at Oxford, claiming that her daughter is close friends with two members of The Saturdays, and David Mamet sending his congratulations to their production of Glengarry Glen Ross. Carol rebukes these claims in an email to her daughter, along with several other complaints about the Hallidays: Beth actually dropped out of college, from the much less prestigious Oxford Brookes, Beth isn't friends with the Saturdays, Celia just hired them to perform at her birthday party, and the letter from Mamet was threatening legal action after they changed the script to his play.
- Red Herring:
- Early on, it's mentioned that a convicted murderer has just been released from prison, and has been seen around town, leading to the impression that there may be a deranged killer on the loose. This released convict ends up having no impact on the murder case in this book at all. The "convicted murderer" is actually Issy, who was falsely arrested during the events of the previous novel. It seems word of her innocence hasn't spread to everyone in the Fairway Players.
- Before the identity of the body is revealed, there are a handful of people who are unaccounted for, leading the reader to suspect they may be the victim. Beth misses her cue to pop out of the beanstalk, Kevin isn't responding to texts after a run-in with a drug dealer, and the body is discovered wearing a Santa costume, like the one Carol was described wearing. All three of them are alive, the body is someone who hasn't been introduced yet.
- Scrapbook Story: The book is presented as a collection of messages, emails, and other media collected as evidence surrounding the discovery of the body.
- Speak Ill of the Dead: Those who knew the victim, Ronnie, only have negative things to say. He was an alcoholic and a wife-beater, so few people missed him when he left. His own sons call him a bastard and call his death "a good riddance".
- Stereotype Reaction Gag: Needing to offload the mistakenly purchased drugs, Sarah-Jane asks Jade if she has any contacts that could help her out. Jade initially seems offended that Sarah-Jane would assume she has drug connections just because she lives in low income housing - before mentioning that she does, in fact, know a drug dealer who can help.
- They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Joel recieves an OBE, and Celia insists that he be listed everywhere as Joel Halliday, OBE. When Celia is being interrogated by the police, she responds to all their questions with "no comment," except to correct the police on her husband's title.
- Thought They Knew Already: Dustin sends Sarah-Jane a vague email about some worrying rumors he heard being spread throughout the cast. Assuming he's talking about the beanstalk prop being made of asbestos, she reassures him that it's not that dangerous. It turns out, he was talking about a completely different rumor - he had no idea about the asbestos and becomes very concerned upon learning about it.
- Undercover Cop Reveal: When the body is discovered, Dustin reveals themself to be a cop. He was undercover in Lockwood investigating a drug ring, and joined the Fairway players as an opportunity to keep an eye on the community from the inside.