Viper, London 2021

Janet Hallett is a routined writer for magazines, the British Government and the theatre.

In this first novel of hers she combines all her communicative and writing skills to create the ultimate whodunnit in the tradition of the epistolary novel of the 18th century. And she puts everything in it: what´s app conversations, emails , police protocols and a background story.

We meet a group of people in the small town of Lockwood, connected by their membership in the local theatre group.Newcomers are a young couple, who worked in a hospital in Africa before returning to England. Isabel, a nurse in their hospital in Lockwood, persuades them to join the actors´group.

In the beginning we hear that a law firm  is investigating a murder in the group, which, in fact, only happens almost at the end of the novel. Before that we become more acquainted with the cast than we wish for, by tons of emails and what´s apps between everybody. The title refers to the appeal the prominent family in the story start, because Poppy, the 2 -year-old granddaughter of the theatre principal, is diagnosed with brain cancer and needs  very expensive experimental treatment only found in the US.

When the murder finally occurs, at least I have completely lost interest in who the murderer is and why this happens, sorry to say.