The Killer Question
Sue and Mal Eastwood thought they had escaped a dangerous past by taking over The Case is Altered, an isolated pub brought back to life by a popular weekly trivia night. But the arrival of a mysterious, unbeatable quiz team—and the discovery of a body in the river—signals the end of their quiet life. Five years later, the pub stands derelict, and their nephew Dominic returns to film a documentary about the tragedy, determined to uncover how a simple game, a secret police operation, and a single question led to ruin.
- Dominic Eastwood - Sue and Mal’s nephew
- Sue and Mal Eastwood - Owners of ‘The Case is Altered’ in 2019
- Fiona - Local teenage girl
- Thor’s hammer (real name Chris) - Leader of The Sturdy Challengers/The Plucky Losers
- The General (real name Glen) - Leader of The Shadow knights, uncover Hulme police officer
- Luke - Former actor
- Chloe - Missing girl
- Ian - Actor who plays Chloe’s father Piers, Tanya's brother
- Tanya - Actor who plays Chloe’s mother Caroline, Ian's sister
- Dee Obasi - DI with Hulme police
- Lewis Perry - DCI Hulme police, also known as Cloud
- Polly - Production assistant at Reel Life Productions Ltd
- Sean and Adrian - Owners of The Rainbow
- Flo and Mimi - Owners of Tom’s bar
- Peter - Owner of The Lusty Lass
- Diddy and Con - Owners of The Brace of Pheasants
- 2024: Dominic reaches out to Polly to ask if she’d be interested in producing Sue and Mal’s story and sends her his notes.
- 2019: A group making the rounds at pub quiz nights is known for cheating; one of them wears an orange puffy jacket.
- A new team calling themselves The Shadow Knights starts coming to quiz night at The Case is Altered.
- A body wearing an orange puffy jacket is found floating in the river by The Case; it is identified as Luke.
- Fiona starts living with Sue and Mal and working at The Case when Sue finds out she is homeless.
- 2014: Mal was a constable and Sue was a sergeant with the Hulme police.
- They are on a task force for Operation Honeyguide that is working to find two missing women; Beata Novak and Chloe Cunningham who were kidnapped by a gang.
- 2014: Piers begs Sue and Mal to find out how much money the gang wants for Chloe’s safe return.
- He says he knows that Sue and Mal once covered up a murder and threatens to tell if they don’t help him.
- 2019: The General suggests Mal host a quiz night for all the other pub owners so they can see how a quiz night should be run.
- 2019: There is a quiz night at The Case is Altered where the pub owners, all the regulars and the Shadow Knights attend.
- After the quiz that night, The Case is Altered closes their doors for good.
- 2014: Operation Honeyguide was not real. It was a ruse to arrest Sue and Mal for being crooked cops. Sue and Mal are arrested on two counts of deception for financial gain.
- Sue and Mal took the money from Piers and stashed it for themselves, which is not the first time.
- 2014: The murder coverup - Sue and Mal respond to a call and see a man strangling his wife. He explains she has cancer and asked him to end her suffering, so they let him finish, thinking it was a mercy killing. A few weeks later, they discover it was not a mercy killing; the woman was only newly diagnosed with cancer and was not suffering.
- Dee is furious when Piers blackmails Sue and Mal into doing the money exchange because that makes Sue and Mal victims under duress and they likely won’t be able to prosecute them now.
- 2019: The Shadow Knights and the Sturdy Challengers tie the quiz, and Mal breaks out a tie-breaker question: ‘How have the Shadow Knights been cheating these past ten weeks?’
- Peter reveals that he caught the Shadow Knights cheating by using a signal jammer when they came in to The Lusty Lass, thus confirming that they had been using a tiny in-ear piece and hidden microphone to get answers from someone on the outside.
- 2014: Operation Honeyguide is considered entrapment and there is not enough evidence on Sue and Mal’s other offenses so they are fired and lose their pensions but are not prosecuted.
- 2019: All of The Shadow Knights are undercover police officers.
- Cloud announces that the couple before them are not Sue and Mal; they are Tanya and Ian Frost.
- Dee walks in and announces that Tanya and Ian are under arrest for murdering Sue, Mal, and Luke.
- Tanya and Ian murdered Luke because he recognized them as Tanya and Ian, and they murdered Sue and Mal because they never accepted that Sue and Mal were not punished for scamming people while they were police officers.
- Dee was the shadow knights person on the outside feeding them answers.
- Tanya and Ian killed Sue and Mal the night before they got the keys to The Case is Altered.
- Sue and Mal’s remains are found in the cement foundation of the bike rack outside The Case is Altered.
- The same day the documentary called, The Killer Question, airs on Netflix, Dominic reopens The Case is Altered with Chris as catering manager and Fiona as an assistant.
- The pub now has a true crime theme and still runs quiz nights.
Janice Hallett has a unique signature style that really stands out in the mystery genre. She brings the old-school epistolary novel into the modern age by using emails, texts, and transcripts, which turns the reader into a detective. You believe every word you read but once the secrets are revealed at the end you think back to what you read and go, 'why didn't I catch that!'
This unique writing style makes for such an interesting experience, and the lack of traditional chapters makes it even harder to find a stopping point, not that you will want one. There are so many surprise twists packed into the story that keep the momentum high right up until the ending. Since every character feels likeable and believable, the reveals were huge shocks because I truly didn't see them coming. This was a clever, fast-paced puzzle that proves how engaging a mystery can be when the format is just as creative as the plot.
- Luke - Dead - Killed by Tanya and Ian
- Sue - Dead - Killed by Tanya and Ian
- Mal - Dead - Killed by Tanya and Ian
- Tanya - Alive - In jail for triple murder
- Ian - Alive - In jail for triple murder
- Dominic - Alive - Running The Case is Altered
- Chris - Alive - Working as the catering manager at The Case is Altered
- Fiona - Alive - Working at The Case is Altered
- Blackmail
- Murder
- Kidnapping
Publisher: Atria Books
ISBN: 9781668083536
Publication Date: September 23, 2025
Note: Details are for the original edition. Other formats, editions, and audiobook versions may be available.
