The Fairway Players are back at their usual antics in this delicious, suspenseful mystery.
This time, however, committee co-chair Sarah-Jane MacDonald’s sister, Nicky-Rose, has suddenly returned to Lower Lockwood after 20 years abroad—with a big secret to hide.
The Players are staging Agatha Christie’s The Hollow. Since I happened to reread this classic just last year, I was pleased by the choice and the way Hallett reflects Christie’s novel in the plot of The Silent Appeal. The Fairway Players grumble, of course, as they are wont to do. No one wants to play Greta, the dumpy wife who’s wronged, so director Kevin MacDonald (Sarah-Jane’s husband) has to call in the infamous Issy Beck, well known to the readers of Hallett’s first book, The Appeal.
There is also the matter of the star prop of the piece, a Victorian mole-trap, which prop coordinator Denise amazingly locates in an antique shop. Readers, keep your eye on that beauty.
Kevin struggles to keep the unruly players in line. Nicky-Rose, who has a background in dance and theatre, finally decides to help out and she knows what’s she’s doing. Does Kevin fall in love with her? Sarah-Jane is stuck at home with the tot from hell, Sammy, because her mother and usual babysitter, Carol, has decided to take up with the Mendon Players when she doesn’t get the part she wants with the Fairway group.
As in The Appeal, the story is told through texts, emails and documents, with Roderick Tanner, KC (retired), enlisting the help of former law students, now full-fledged lawyers, Femi and Charlotte to solve the case.
It’s amazing how well this technique works. There’s so much going on besides the play, and the reader gets the whole scoop, albeit from a bevy of unreliable narrators.
Do-gooder Fran Elroy-Jones has brought more dubious types into the group: Amelia and Lucas Stibson and his cousin Georgia. They sponge off Fran and are alternately annoying and dangerous.
Fran, meanwhile, is having an affair with a married man.
Celia Halliday, who directs every other play with her husband Joel (don’t forget the OBE after his name—it’s the law) is up to her usual tricks. She just hates it when she’s not in charge.
And at the heart of it all is Nicky-Rose. What happened in Barbados? Why is she tolerating a friendship with clingy Issy? Is she somehow involved with Lucas?
Femi and Charlotte discuss and reflect as Roderick sends them documents in batches. He has a medical emergency, but that doesn’t stop him. As the finale approaches, Hallett pulls out all the stops: The texts and emails are out of consecutive order!
I enjoyed this romp from start to finish and can only hope the crazy Fairway Players will be back again. Well, most of them. A few will be in jail.
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Note: As the holidays approach, consider reading Hallett’s novella, The Christmas Appeal, featuring the Fairway gang. I know I’ll be rereading it in December. It’s a hoot.
