Secrets, codes and a missing treasure

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett is a crime book with a difference. The story is told as a set of transcriptions from some audio files saved on a phone by Steve Smith. Steve has recently been released from prison and he’s never used a smart phone before but his estranged son has gifted him a used mobile. The transcriptions are also digitally created so on occasion they aren’t accurate and they make mistakes in generating text from the recordings – some of these mistakes are amusing.

When Steve was a boy he was placed in a special unit at school with a few other pupils and just one teacher (Miss Iles – transcribed as missiles). Each of the pupils had a particular problem and Steve’s was that he was being looked after ineffectually by an older brother in the absence of his parents. All of the children in the unit had some similar problem. One day Steve found a book written by a well-known children’s author (closely modelled on Enid Blyton) and the children visited a place where she lived and which was featured in the story. Now he is an adult and he has few memories of what happened on that trip but he seeks out his childhood companions and begins to retrace his steps because lots of people are convinced that the books are a code leading to a hidden treasure.

There are lots of hidden layers in this story and things are not always as they appear. Steve can’t really remember what happened on this childhood trip and those who were with him have differing recollections. Some of his childhood friends are supportive but others seem to be hiding secrets. There seem to be other people also pursuing the treasure.

This is not the first book I have read where the story was told through documents rather than as a standard narrative and I usually quite enjoy these. I didn’t really enjoy this book. It was convoluted and clever but I was never engaged with the character and I began to lose track of what was real and what wasn’t. The ending does make you want to rescan the book so that you can see how you’ve been misled but I have to say that I was left thinking “so what ?” – this book really didn’t do it for me.