Have you read The Appeal by Janice Hallett? Need someone to discuss that crazy plot and tricky epistolary style with? Have questions about exactly what happened in this sleepy British town? Check out my Spoiler Discussion for The Appeal. Also check out The Christmas Appeal!
The Appeal by Janice Hallett.
Published in the UK in January 2021 and to be published in the US on January 25, 2022 by Atria Books.
Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.
Synopsis: The Fairway Players, a local theatre group, is in the midst of rehearsals for an Arthur Miller play, when tragedy strikes the family of director Martin Haywood and his wife Helen, the play’s star. Their young granddaughter has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and with an experimental treatment costing a tremendous sum, their fellow castmates rally to raise money.
But not everybody is convince of the good intentions of those involved. New actress Sam raises doubts.
As tension grows within the community, things come to a shocking head the night of the dress rehearsal.
The next day, a dead body is found, and soon, an arrest is made. In the run-up to the trial, two young lawyers sift through the material—emails, messages, letters—with a growing suspicion that a killer may still be on the loose.
Table of Contents: Spoiler Discussion Plot for the Appeal
Character List for The Appeal
NEW: Character List for the Christmas Appeal!
Plot Summary of the Appeal
Who Was the Killer in the Appeal?
Character List for the Appeal
The book has a helpful list, but if you are reading The Christmas Appeal and came back to this for a refresher, I’ll provide a character list for this book and that one too!
Characters in The Appeal
The lawyers
*Femi Hassan
*Charlotte Holroyd
*Roderick Tanner
The Haywards
Martin Hayward and Helen Grace-Hayward: married couple in their 50s who run the Fairway Players.
James Hayward and his wife Olivia: son and daughter in law of Martin and Helen.
Paige Hayward Resnick and Glen Resnick: daughter and son-in-law of Martin and Helen
Poppy Reswick: Paige and Glen’s young daughter
The Dearing/MacDonalds
*Sarah Jane and Kevin Macdonald: couple in their 30s. They have a son, Harley
*Carol Dearing: Sarah Jane’s mother
Margaret Dearing: Carol’s mother
Shelley Dearing: Carol’s sister
Other Fairway Players members
*Joyce Walford: in her 60s. Has two adult sons, Barry and Nick.
Harry: Joyce’s partner
*John O’ Dea: the treasurer
*Denise and Steve Malcolm
*Marianne and Nick Payne: they have an adult daughter, Karen
*Joel and Celia Halliday: they have a teenage daughter, Beth
*Emma Crooks: friend of Paige Resnick
The medical people
Isabel Beck: a nurse at St. Ann’s hospital
Lauren Malden: former nurse
Samantha Greenwood: nurse at St. Ann’s
Kel Greenwood: nurse at St. Ann’s
Dr. Tish Bhatoa: Poppy’s oncologist
*Sergeant Cooper: police officer
Characters in the Christmas Appeal
Characters above with as asterisk appear in the Christmas Appeal.
New Characters:
Samantha “Sammy” Macdonald: Kevin and Sarah’s baby daughter
Fran Elroy-Jones: caseworker in town
Dustin Perez: new in town
Jade: runs a childcare group on the housing estate
Myra: Barry Walford’s girlfriend
Carly and Matthew Dexter: new in town
Reverend Harries
Plot Summary for The Appeal by Janice Hallett
The Appeal has an epistolary format, and offers a lot of recap, but I will still do a quick summary as there is a LOT going on.
When Martin and his wife Helen, head of local theater group The Fairway Players and owners of a posh golf club, announce that their granddaughter Poppy has a brain tumor. Their friends, colleagues, and neighbors rally around them.
The Fairway Players are about to start rehearsing a production of Arthur Miller’s My Three Sons, and Martina and Helen insist that the show must go on, with Martin directing and Helen in a lead role.
Martin announces via email that there is an expensive experimental drug treatment for Poppy’s cancer available in America, and that they have set up a crowdfunding page for donations.
Sam, a nurse and new member of the theater group, starts asking a lot of questions about Poppy’s treatment. She emails Poppy’s doctor with questions and emails other asking about the doctor’s reputation.
A man named Chris Wilkinson emails Poppy’s fundraising website offering to donate. But in exchange, he asks for information on the drugs Poppy will be treated with. Poppy’s doctor, Dr. Bhatoa, asks that he send the money directly to her. When she refuses to give Wilkinson any information, he insinuates that she’s lying about the lifesaving medication.
A woman named Lydia Drake emails Martin offering her help in investing the donations.
Sam shows up at Martin and Helen’s house and says she thinks the doctor is lying about the drugs and has stolen the $175,000 they have given her. Dr. Bhatoa tells Martin that she knows Sam and that she is a troublemaker.
Martin and Helen reveal that Helen lost a child to meningitis years ago, before their children Paige and James were born.
Martin meets with Lydia Drake and agrees to let her invest the donation money. He’s having some kind of dispute regarding unpaid bills to contractors at the golf club.
Dr. Bhatoa emails Martin telling him that she needs the money for Poppy’s medication in two months at the latest. Because he “invested” the money with Lydia Drake, he tells her he has no money to give her.
Dr. Bhatoa has financial worries of her own. Her father is in poor health and her brother who went missing while doing charity work overseas.
Sam investigates Martin’s wife Helen. Martin admits to the fundraising committee that Lydia Drake was a fraud and that she and the money he gave her has vanished. When the local press picks up the story, Martin is furious.
Dr. Bhatoa tells Martin that she considers Sam responsible for her brother’s death. Someone attacks Sam while she is working at the hospital. Rumors fly that Sam is Lydia Drake. At play rehearsal, Sam announces that the fundraising for Poppy is a fraud, that the drugs they are fundraising for don’t exist, and that Helen didn’t lose a child.
Lydia Drake’s emails are traced to Magda, who works for Martin and Helen. The play opens. Sam dies of a fall off her balcony.
Who murdered Sam in The Appeal?
The legal assistants receive more documents that reveal that Martin has a gambling problem, and that Dr. Bhatoa didn’t blame Sam for her brother’s death. Their boss, Tanner, reveals that Isabel “Issy” Beck is in prison for Sam’s murder, and that she’s confessed.
New evidence:
Helen’s first child didn’t have meningitis. Helen, who suffers from Munchausen’s by Proxy, deliberately made him sick until he died.
Helen and Martin are lying about Poppy’s illness with Dr. Bhatoa’s help.
While researching Poppy’s treatment at the hospital, Sam discoveres that Paige, Helen’s daughter, was frequently ill.
Martin knows his wife’s history and copycats it to raise the money he needs to cover his gambling debts. But rather than fake Poppy’s cancer, he lies about it. He asks Dr. Bhatoa to be in on the fraud and offers to cut her in on the fundraising. Dr. Bhatoa researches Helen’s history and starts blackmailing Martin.
Glen, Paige’s husband, is in on it. James, Martin and Helen’s son, knows about it.
Sam tells James she knows what’s going on. James kills Sam, using his twins’ birth as an alibi. Issy knows James did it, but for some reason, she agrees to keep his secret.
Martin ends up in jail for financial fraud. The police arrest James. Isabel emails the legal assistants saying that James didn’t mean to do it.
BUT: is Sam really dead? What is with the weird email at the end about Sam being sighted in Africa by a doctor and also a patient? Is Sam a ghost???
Spoiler Discussion for The Appeal:
Munchausen by Proxy is typically an individual mental illness resulting in abuse perpetuated by a single person, usually a mother, who has control over the victim, typically a child. Why do Martin and Poppy’s parents agree to be in on the deception? Paige, Poppy’s mother, doesn’t seem to be in on it. But how is that possible?
I still don’t really understand why Issy agrees (offers?) to take the fall for James. It made no sense to me.
The Arthur Miller Clues
I haven’t read All My Sons for a while, and my memory is fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure it’s about a family who is hiding a dark and shameful secret. If anyone has insights into the connection between the play and this story, please let me know in comments!
Looking for more spoiler discussions? Check out my full list on Armchair Book Club!
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Did İssy acept to go to jail just because James was nice to her while everyone else ignored her? Why did Arnie called Martin a rapist, it was only mentioned in few e-mails and that’s it, or maybe I missed something. How do you go to a random doctor and ask them to join you in your lies about such a serious matter? How did Martin know Tish will accept his offer? And as you said why did the other characters go along with the Munchausen? İf Poppy was given chemo and she wasn’t really sick, isn’t that dangerous or something or were Paige, Helen and Poppy just sitting in Tish’s office pretending that Poppy is having chemo? This part was confusing.
Hi Aleale,
This is what I think but happy to be corrected if anyone has a different theory:
1. Issy confessed to protect James, but after the lawyers went over all the evidence that comprises the story, she was released and James was arrested.
2. I think the emails said Martin was protecting a rapist, and I think the rapist was Daniel, Tish’s brother. I don’t remember what the connection between Daniel and Martin, though.
3. Martin offers Tish a cut of the money he is scamming people out of, and I guess realizes she’d agree. Also I think he needs her cooperation to pretend that Poppy is having chemo. I don’t think she really was having chemo.
I think using munchausen by proxy as a storyline is fascinating, but in this instance I found it quite implausible. How does Helen seemingly bypass Paige to convince her daughter and everyone else that Poppy has cancer? Why doesn’t Paiage question it? And why, once the deception was exposed, didn’t a neutral doctor examine Poppy to confirm that she had never been ill? It seems as if it’s just forgotten about.
I also don’t understand why Issy covers for James, there is no explanation for it other than he was the only person who was nice to her.
The idea that Lauren was made up and Issy just sent emails to herself is quite silly.
Why didn’t we ever see Sam’s or Kel’s emails? I get that it was deliberate but I don’t know what the point of it was. No explanation was ever made.
What made Sam suspicious of Helen to look into her background?
Funny how every police interview report had the solicitor read out a statement on behalf of their client and then the client would answer No Comment to every question.
I found a lot of the emails very contrived – and people just don’t talk like that in emails.
Excellent points and questions! There is a lot of suspension of disbelief required.
I’m not convinced James actually did it. One of the last things we see is that Sam tries to call James just before 10 but he doesn’t answer. I don’t think she ever got a chance to tell him what she found. I think Issy actually does kill Sam and when the opportunity arises to blame James, she does. Just like she blames “Lauren” for what happened with her patient. As they said, she is an opportunist and while she plays dumb, we know she’s not. I also think this is why we are left with Issy’s final email. For whatever reason the legal team doesn’t think she is capable of murder, but I think we are given ample proof that there is great hate inside her, she is mentally unstable, and she is more than capable, especially if she thinks she will get away with it. As she said, she is always looking ahead.
Ooh, interesting theory. I like it. I just finished her newest book and it’s really unique.
what does the last email mean between Tish and the other doctor? That Sam is always watching???
I didn’t understand that either and added it to the questions at the end. I don’t think Sam faked her death and is alive. Is she a ghost?
I feel bad for Sam. She lost all her money because of that other nurse who stayed with her and Kel. She lost the people she cared about, her husband ran off with her best friend. She couldn’t setting into the new town. She couldn’t even start anew because she lost her life. She lost everything trying seek truth and justice.
And in death, she still has not let go of served justice and haunts the person who made it impossible for the first injustice to be served —Tish’s successful effort to get her brother off the hook of sexual impropriety.