At this point it is safe to say that author Janice Hallett is the queen of the modern epistolary novel. This outing centers around a multimedia art masters degree program and its disparate students. Their messages, essays, thoughts, and ramblings are helpfully contained on the school’s centralized communication system, with the occasional off-platform text chain or email.
The one-year course is headed by Gela Nathaniel, a professor desperate to keep her department funded and relevant to the bean counters. She has retooled the program to teach students how to take their artistic abilities and make them a commodity for the corporate world. Sketches can become logos, soundscapes can become atmosphere, installations can become industry reveal events.
It’s all well and good until the students become more interested in their own agendas than the coursework. When a corporate client with a sketchy past “hires” the the team for a launch party a crosscurrent of morals turns into a whirlpool of chaos.
Something strange happened this morning. Dad had a meeting, so he dropped me off early. When I tried the studio door it was unlocked. That usually means Alyson has been there overnight and is clearing up, but I didn’t hear her music. She always has her phone blasting out old tunes. I was making a cup of tea when there was a noise from the stockroom corridor. Someone moving, but secretly, like they didn’t want me to hear. It wasn’t Alyson — she always thunders out to say hello. This was someone else.” ~ Loc. 585
Hallett is adept at not only telling the story through the ‘documents’ but she gives such personality to the characters. The reader genuinely finds themselves disliking or rooting for different people. In this book in particular, Hallett manages to turn one character from zero to hero just by revealing one detail late in the book. Of course, the clues were all there to be found from the beginning…
As always, Hallett’s books are compulsively readable. I think The Twyford Code is still my favorite, but The Examiner is a close second.
My thanks to Simon & Schuster / Atria for the review copy. Read via NetGalley.
Publisher: Atria Books (September 10, 2024)
Language: English
Hardcover: 480 pages
ISBN-10: 1668023423