Home » Book Reviews » Janice Hallett » The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett
Possible spoilers ahead
I know this book was released a while ago but I was so keen to read The Examiner that I’m only just picking this one up, and I thought as Christmas was approaching then it would be a great festive treat to read it now! It goes back to the Fairway Players from The Appeal book, and I guess I’m a little surprised that Hallett is repeating those characters and scenes but I seem to remember she herself used to be involved in theatre so perhaps writing The Appeal whetted her appetite for theatre stories so she was keen to write another theatre story. Grab your copy and let’s read it together!
I like the quote from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at the front of the book. And I see the dedication is to the Ghost of Christmas Past so this makes wonder if there is any significance in Hallett choosing a quote that references the Ghost of Christmas Past, ‘things that have been’, rather than the Ghost of Christmas Present or the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, is this a hint that the past crimes of the Haywards (from The Appeal) will feature?!
Roderick Tanner (lawyer, now retired) emails trainee lawyers Femi and Charlotte, in November 2023, with the subject line ‘A conundrum for you’, and sends them various emails and police transcripts from the Fairway Players theatre group’s rehearsals for their 2022 pantomime, Jack and The Beanstalk, saying that there seems to be a mystery and he thinks he’s worked it out but can they. Eeek, I’m already excited, and I have to admit I took his invitation of working out the mystery personally, even though it’s addressed to Femi and Charlotte, tee hee! I will certainly do my best! And I see he’s sent this message a year after the event has happened (he says the event happened in the last few weeks of 2022, and his email is dated 1st November 2023), so why a year’s delay, I wonder, or is this just the time it’s taken for the case to come to court? And I note that he’s retired so does that mean he can’t take action if there has been a crime but that the girls can?
Sarah-Jane MacDonald is now Chair of the theatre group, but Celia Halliday is keen to assert herself, sending her Christmas round-robin email (on 1st December 2022) to the theatre group before Sarah-Jane sends hers, summarising boastfully her family’s year and slightly criticising some of Sarah-Jane’s decisions regarding the theatre group’s year. Meanwhile Sarah-Jane is delighted with the 18 foot high beanstalk she’s sourced for the pantomime, meaning that Jack can climb a real beanstalk rather than having to mime this action. She is also pleased at the fact that the beanstalk was formerly used in West End productions, though it has been in a local lock-up for many years. However, a wall needs to be removed from the church hall to accommodate the huge beanstalk, which the vicar reluctantly agrees to as the proceeds from the pantomime are going towards the church roof restoration fund. Sarah-Jane is also keen for residents of the two new housing estates to join either the cast or the audience, the very posh Hayward Heights estate, and the (less posh) Grange Estate, so arranges for leaflets advertising the pantomime to be distributed there. Oooh, Celia’s snide undermining of Sarah-Jane is quite nasty, both with her round-robin email and then continually sending other emails directly on the back of Sarah-Jane’s emails, although credit to Sarah-Jane for not rising to this! And then there’s the double-sidedness of Emma Crooks who seems to be trying to feed this tension by emailing Sarah-Jane praising the beanstalk whilst also emailing Celia criticising it! Emma reminds me of Izzy from The Appeal book, trying to insinuate herself with the leading people by turning them against each other and trying to ensure she is looked on favourably by both opposing sides. And there’s also Celia’s snobbery looking down on the new Grange Estate. I was wondering if I’d recognise names from The Appeal book, or indeed if there would be any characters from that book in this one, and I recognise the MacDonalds (Sarah-Jane and her husband Kevin and her mother Carol Dearing), maybe Beth Halliday was from before, and I think I remember the dog Woof, and maybe elderly Joyce Walford, but I will have to check, and of course there are Femi and Charlotte guiding us through everything with their reading of the evidence and their guesses. And was Jackie Marsh on holiday last time, as there is an ‘out of office’ from her this time too so is this a crafty nod to the previous book, tee hee?
A new cast member, Dustin Perez, who has recently moved to the Grange Estate, is asking questions about the previous leaders of the theatre group, prompting Sarah-Jane to remind older cast members not to gossip about the past. Two other new cast members, Carly and Matthew Dexter, live in Hayward Heights. Hmmm, I kind of wish (like the new cast member, Dustin!) that the past would be explained as I can’t quite remember all the details from The Appeal, and I wonder if readers who haven’t read that book might struggle too. Sarah-Jane mentions someone called Helen (who was looking after the photos before) and I think this was one of the main Hayward family members from last time. And Sarah-Jane mentions that the Hayward Heights estate is on the site of the former theatre group’s leaders’ house, Martin and Helen Hayward, so that’s an interesting link to the past too, and again seems to confirm that none of the Haywards will be in this story. I wonder if there is something suspicious about Dustin, the one asking questions, as one of the other cast members says he looks familiar so was he actually from the time before and has disguised himself to return? Though why would he draw attention to the previous events if he was part of them? And omg, Celia’s dog has wee’d up the beanstalk, tee hee, that’s hysterical, I always love Hallett’s touches of humour! And I’m interested in Femi and Charlotte’s discussions on their thoughts so far, namely that the MacDonalds don’t have the unquestioning support of the theatre group like the Haywards did, and the Hallidays have the social standing of the Haywards but less power in the theatre group than the MacDonalds. But neither see any hint yet of the mystery that Tanner refers to, as indeed neither do I (apart from a possible suspicion of Dustin).
Sarah-Jane sends an email to the cast praising their hard work so far and sharing her recent discovery that the beanstalk was used in a local pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk about 30 years ago which she feels is a nice touch with it being used now. Celia follows this with an email referring to the huge size and the smell of the beanstalk, prompting Sarah-Jane to send another email assuring everyone that Joyce Walford’s sons will be giving the beanstalk a deep-clean. She then receives an email from Denise, who remembers the last pantomime 30 years ago with the beanstalk, and says that it contains asbestos. Sarah-Jane replies to Denise assuring her that there is no danger and asking her not to mention the asbestos rumour to anyone else, and offering Denise’s daughter a larger part in the pantomime. Dustin contacts Sarah-Jane saying he’s heard a rumour that a convicted murderer is in town, Sarah-Jane doesn’t answer this but offers him a larger part in the pantomime. Sarah-Jane gives the Dexters’ roles away to other people as the Dexters have not made contact since the auditions or responded to Sarah-Jane’s emails and messages. Sarah-Jane also needs to find someone to be Santa Claus, after forgetting that Joyce’s husband, Harry, who took on the role for decades, has recently died, and Sarah-Jane’s mum agrees to be Santa Claus. Later Sarah-Jane emails the theatre group sharing the good news that the pantomime is sold out. Meanwhile Celia learns that the beanstalk has a trapdoor and that it likely contains asbestos. Tee hee, good old bribery with Sarah-Jane offering Denise’s daughter a better part in order to encourage Denise not to mention the asbestos in the beanstalk! I’m kind of feeling that something is going to happen with this beanstalk though, there is so much focus on it and this must be for a good reason, perhaps someone will fall off it and die, or it will fall on someone and kill them, and it’s now been revealed that there’s a trapdoor in it so that gives potential for something to happen too! And are the new cast members, the Dexters, missing, as it sounds like they’ve not been seen for several weeks and they haven’t responded to Sarah-Jane’s emails…or are they dead, is it their possible murders that provides the mystery Tanner refers to?! And eeek, Dustin saying he’s heard that there is a convicted murderer in town, so is this the murderer from The Appeal?! Although surely it’s too soon for them to be released? Or could it be Izzy, as she was convicted of murder but then the conviction was overturned, and if so then could she perhaps actually be Emma Crooks as Emma’s snideness and trying to curry favour seems like Izzy?! Though I see Emma has a part in the pantomime so surely the others would recognise her if she was Izzy. Deliciously, we’re being given lots of potential clues and potential red herrings here, I love it! But wow, I am feeling for Sarah-Jane, poor thing, she is fielding so many problems such as missing a Santa Claus, requests that the gift bags for children be gender-neutral, as well as rumours of asbestos and returning murderers, it seems beyond exhausting!
Kevin MacDonald passes the church hall at 11.50pm on 22nd December and notices a light on in the building, but presumes it is just the vicar. The following evening is the pantomime performance and it all begins well but everything then comes to a halt waiting for Beth Halliday’s appearance as the Fairy Godmother. Then a scream is heard. There is then a headline from The Lockwood Gazette on 24th December saying a dead body was found in the beanstalk. Omg, a dead body in the beanstalk?! Hallett’s imagination is just amazing, tee hee! I was thinking there was more to that light in the church hall late at night though, so I wonder what was happening and who was there and what were they doing, stashing the body in the beanstalk perhaps?! But who is dead, is it one of the Dexters who seem to have mysteriously disappeared, or could it be the Dexters who put the body in the beanstalk so they have now disappeared once the beanstalk was brought out of storage, although that means they must have lived in the area before and no-one has mentioned recognising them? And omg, more dramas for poor Sarah-Jane, even before the dead body was found, bless her, with Joyce having increased the price of the cakes so she didn’t have to do maths but this resulted in customers accusing the theatre group of fraud, and the sweets which had been ordered to give to the children in the audience were actually drugs (all very amusing for the reader though, tee hee, such chaos!)! And I wonder what Celia’s onstage surprise was, I can’t imagine she had anything to do with the dead body, surely?! And when Femi and Charlotte summarise their assumptions so far, they mentioned Peter Halliday (Celia’s son) and ask what he was imprisoned for and if he has now been released, I’d forgotten entirely about him so I was grateful for that reminder! And Tanner messages Femi and Charlotte saying that it ‘may’ be a murder case and who do they think the body is, so his choice of the word ‘may’ in relation to a murder case is intriguing, what can he mean when there is clearly a dead body, surely it can only be murder?! And it’s interesting that we now seem to have left the action as it happened and are instead seeing it in retrospect via the police interviews and newspaper reports. And that Hallett chose to leave the action at quite a crucial cliffhanger point just as a scream was heard, she is such a tease, I love it!
There is a copy of the police interview with Beth Halliday who says her parents told her to hide in the beanstalk, as they’d previously discovered it had a trapdoor, and then she would surprise the cast by popping out of it to say her lines, but that someone must have noticed the trapdoor was latched open and therefore closed it meaning that Beth had to kick her way out of the beanstalk, and as she slid out a body dressed in a Santa suit slid out of the beanstalk too. The story also goes back to the night of the pantomime when Sarah-Jane’s mum, Carol, is relating to Sarah-Jane what is happening inside (as Sarah-Jane was outside rescuing Kevin who was pushed into a wheelie-bin by a drug dealer), Carol tells Sarah-Jane that the beanstalk had split in two and Beth and a skeleton had slid out. The police interview with Joel Halliday reveals that he and Celia were also going to tell the audience that the beanstalk was made of asbestos and that they must all therefore evacuate the building and to speak to Sarah-Jane for a refund on their ticket money, whilst knowing that the theatre group’s insurance doesn’t cover for refunds once the performance has begun and also knowing that the beanstalk doesn’t really contain asbestos otherwise they would have never told their daughter to hide inside it. Sergeant Crowe asks if the Hallidays also knew there was a dead body inside the beanstalk, and if it was someone their son killed (who was imprisoned for drug-dealing and ABH) and if they then helped their son hide the body in the beanstalk in order to protect him, all of which Joel denies. Omg, the Hallidays were seriously out to destroy Sarah-Jane, weren’t they?! Oh wow, there is so much dry humour in that police interview, Hallett must have had such fun writing it, my favourite line was ‘the Fairy Godmother surfed out on an ever-expanding wave of polystyrene Quavers’! And then later when there is the police interview with Denise (who told Celia about the asbestos) and she says ‘for the benefit of the transcript, Sergeant Crowe takes a deep breath’, tee hee! And then later again when Sergeant Crowe says of the skeleton ‘his closest friends wouldn’t recognise him now’, tee hee! But the absolute gift of a gag from Hallett was Woof the dog chewing on the leg bone of the skeleton!! I was chuckling so much, Hallett’s humour really is genius!
The police say the body was placed in the beanstalk 30 years ago, and they think that whoever put the body in there could have been the one who started the rumour that there was asbestos in the beanstalk in order to try and prevent the beanstalk being used and the body being discovered. Meanwhile the Dexters email Sarah-Jane apologising for their absence but explain that they were in Dubai renovating one of their houses. Joyce then goes to the police saying she knows who the dead body is. Femi and Charlotte suspect the body was Joyce’s husband, Harry, as he always played Santa Claus. Oooh, I’d forgotten about Joyce’s husband always playing Santa Claus, it does seem like it might be him then. But then that means that Joyce must be involved in his death as she had said he had died and she must have then pretended to bury his body (if his body was in the beanstalk all the time). And so the Dexters are apparently alive! Wow, there is so much being revealed so swiftly it’s making my head spin a bit, and all interspersed with some great humour! So thinking that the police presume the person who started the rumour about the asbestos could have been the one who put the body in the beanstalk, it was Denise who told Sarah-Jane (and then Celia) that there was asbestos in the beanstalk, but it could be that she was told this by someone else, as she seemed to be talking about this in order to engineer a bigger part in the theatre’s future performances (this seemed to be her main aim rather than the aim of not having the beanstalk used).
Joyce’s interview continues, she says the body was her husband, Ronnie Bridge. She clarifies that the man she has since called her husband, Harry, who she has been with ever since Ronnie died, wasn’t really her husband and wasn’t her sons’ father. She explains that Ronnie used to play Santa Claus in the pantomimes but he was always drunk whilst doing so and one year he didn’t come home and in the morning she found a note from him pushed through the letterbox saying he had forgotten his key so would sleep at the church hall. The following day she searched for him at the church hall, Harry and the vicar helping her to search for him, but there was no sign of him and he was never seen again, so she presumes now that he slept inside the beanstalk to keep warm snuggled in the polystyrene filler and died in there. She says she didn’t report him missing at the time as she presumed he had gone off with another woman and was also avoiding people he owed money to. The police conclude that Ronnie died due to excess alcohol making him unconscious and then sinking down in the polystyrene filler and being suffocated, and the polystyrene filler then absorbed the smell of the body and the trapdoor was sealed up due to asbestos concerns. Meanwhile Izzy Beck emails Sarah-Jane saying she heard about the body in the beanstalk, and updating her that she has now trained to be an optician but couldn’t resist popping back to Lockwood a little while ago and was surprised at how it’s changed with the extra people from the new estates. The Dexters contact Sarah-Jane offering to take the drugs off her hands, and make a large donation to the church roof fund as Sarah-Jane refuses any money for the drugs. Meanwhile, it is clarified that Dustin was an undercover policeman trying to infiltrate a suspected drug cartel. Oh, so the ‘convicted murderer’ was Izzy then, even though she was found innocent and had been wrongly jailed, so not really a convicted murderer at all. And, tee hee, she sounds just as she ever did, so dramatic in her wording and so keen to see deep friendships and bonds from people who didn’t intend that level of friendship at all, bless her. It’s a nice touch with her making a (kind of) appearance though.
Femi and Charlotte presume the case is closed as they remember that Tanner had called it a ‘mystery’ not a murder, which seems to be the case with Ronnie having died accidentally, but they question why he wanted them to look at the documents in the first place, seeing as the mystery of who the body was has already been solved. He explains that some other documents have since been discovered which weren’t made available to the police at the time, and he wants them to look at these documents and ‘reassure me that I am right in keeping these documents well away from anyone who might be able to act upon their contents, there are some instances where justice is served by not troubling the legal system’. Oooh, there is more then, how intriguing!! Is this going to be one of Hallett’s wonderful twists at the end?!
Femi and Charlotte read the extra documents. There is a message from Denise to Joyce advising her that her sons should be careful around the beanstalk as Harry had once told her that there was asbestos in the beanstalk and that was why the trapdoor was sealed shut. There are also Whatsapp messages between Joyce and her sons showing that they all knew Ronnie’s body was in the beanstalk, that Ronnie used to beat Joyce so she pushed him into the beanstalk when he was drunk and wedged shut the trapdoor, intending him to just suffer a tough night but that the next morning she discovered him dead from suffocation, that she asked Harry to help her conceal Ronnie’s death so he nailed the trapdoor shut and ensured the beanstalk was moved to a lock-up and spread a rumour about it containing asbestos to ensure no-one went near it. Femi and Charlotte suspect that Joyce’s friends and fellow theatre group colleagues may have known that Ronnie’s body was in the beanstalk and this is what they were referring to when Dustin overheard them, rather than the previous Hayward case. Femi and Charlotte ask Tanner if he wants them to ‘disregard’ this crime. He answers that if a victim acts in self-defence then they are usually found ‘not guilty’, and he adds that the autopsy on Ronnie’s body showed that he died of alcohol-induced blood poisoning so actually died of natural causes, even though Joyce believes she killed him. Femi and Charlotte later realise that an autopsy can’t be done on a skeleton so Tanner lied to them about this, although they concede that it could still be the case that Ronnie died of natural causes, but there is also the chance that he died of suffocation due to Joyce’s actions. They decide together to say nothing for the moment as Ronnie was a wife-beater whose drunkenness and violence probably contributed to his own death, but also decide that the option is always open for them to reveal the evidence at a later date if that seems appropriate. The book ends with Sarah-Jane sending a Christmas message to the theatre group praising how everyone pulled together as a team and mentioning that ‘many years ago the Fairway Players were a similarly close-knit team who came together to support each other when the need arose’.
Well, that was fun, and wow Hallett squeezed a lot in there! I was hugely surprised by the twist that Joyce had shut Ronnie in the beanstalk rather than him apparently climbing in himself, I hadn’t seen that coming, that was a great twist, which Hallett does so well! And I was surprised by Tanner covering this up (it hadn’t occurred to me that you couldn’t do blood tests on a skeleton, tee hee!). And so we have the answer why Denise mentioned the rumour of asbestos in the beanstalk, as Harry had told her this in order to ensure no-one went near the beanstalk, knowing that Ronnie’s body was inside it. And I was very surprised that the Dexters weren’t dead, and it seems like they were the local drug dealers, tee hee, which links nicely with Dustin’s presence in the area! But is there a delicious hint of one final twist with Sarah-Jane’s email, is she hinting that some of theatre group back then knew about the body and covered it up all that time ago, as Femi and Charlotte seem to think? I guess this can only have been those members from Joyce’s generation (obviously not Sarah-Jane as she otherwise would never have suggested using the beanstalk knowing there was a body inside it, or the Hallidays as they otherwise never would have suggested that their daughter hide in the beanstalk), but it’s an intriguing idea if the Haywards from The Appeal book knew, is this another link back to them?! And I wonder if there is also a delicious hint that Sarah-Jane now knows Joyce’s real story (with her hinting at how the group pulled together back then) and has also decided (like Tanner) not to reveal this!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, it’s another typically wonderful Hallett story with twists and surprises and with that familiar frantic feel to her books with so many texts and messages to and from different people all coming straight after each other, ensuring you can’t put the book down! It was more humorous than I’m used to with her books, and though I did enjoy the humour, quite a bit of it felt quite slapstick and pantomime-ish and the book felt more light-hearted than her other books, not her usual meaty puzzling whodunnit, and it is a lot smaller than her usual books too, so I wonder if she wrote this book as more of a fun farce Christmas treat for her readers (and fun for herself too!)? Which is fine, I love the gesture and approach, if so.
I must buy Hallett’s most recent book The Killer Question which is about a pub quiz team, tee hee, there is certainly always tension and disharmony at those! But in the meantime, I’ve bought her first children’s book A Box Full of Murders which I am looking forward to reading. And oooh, I see there’s a second book in the children’s series coming out in June 2026 called Death At The Museum. And another ooooh (!), I’ve just seen that another book in The Appeal series, called The Silent Appeal, will be released in September 2026, featuring the same Fairway Players theatre group (Hallett must very much enjoy writing these stories about theatre life!), and to my extra excitement I see that the performance the theatre group is putting on is Agatha Christie’s book The Hollow so I will have to re-read that book too before Hallett’s book comes out, just to whet my appetite!. Wow, 2026 will be a fantastic Hallett-related year for me! And as The Christmas Appeal referenced Charles Dickens’ book A Christmas Carol, I will have to re-read that, seeing as it’s Christmas!
