03 September 2025
‘Murderously good’ – DAILY EXPRESS
‘Twisty, funny and irresistibly dark’ – TOM HINDLE
‘Brims with Hallett’s signature wit. Her best book yet’ – PETER SWANSON
The answer is murder.
The question is whodunnit?
A quiet country pub stands empty, its windows boarded up. And its kindly landlords, Mal and Sue Eastwood, are missing.
What could have happened? A lot of strange events occurred in the days before the Eastwoods disappeared. A murdered man pulled from the nearby river. An eccentric couple on a houseboat who claimed to be led by a spirit guide. And a mysterious new team who suddenly appeared and began winning every round at the weekly pub quiz – much to the anger of the locals. They must have been cheating, but no one could figure out how…
Can you crack the case of the missing landlords? Someone’s not been playing fair, so get the drinks in and see if you can get a perfect score.
‘Devilishly additive. I loved every line’ – LOUISE CANDLISH
‘Another brilliant, twisty mystery from Janice Hallett’ – ELLY GRIFFITHS
‘So clever and entertaining’ – JENNIE GODFREY
‘The modern queen of crime does it again’ – IAN MOORE
Seeing as The Killer Question is set in the world of battling pub quiz teams I must ask – are you an avid pub quizzer? If so, what are your specialist subjects?
I’m a very keen quizzer and belong to a team called ‘Friends & Family’ (some of the members are related and some aren’t). There’s a local quiz community here in North West London that’s friendly, but very competitive. After a while, everyone gets to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as their own. It’s a safe space to exercise your competitive spirit without having to get out of your chair. I like to think my specialist subject is ‘books and literature’ but nine times out of ten the question will be about a book or author I haven’t read. TV and pop music from the 1980s is a favourite and it turns out I’m quite good at ‘health and the human body’ because I spend a good proportion of each day Googling ailments.
Mal writes his own weekly quizzes for The Case is Altered, which his fellow pub landlords find suitably baffling. What kind of research did you do when putting his quizzes together?
It’s not as easy to come up with a solid, entertaining, inventive and challenging quiz as you might think, which is why I’ve dedicated this book to quizzers and quiz-setters alike. And yes, for this novel, I had to devise a series of quizzes over many weeks that subtly reflect a number of elements of the plot (without giving too much away).
Luckily, I know an awesome quiz setter very well – Kim Hobson, who is a member of our quiz team. She organises many quizzes for exactly the same group of quiz teams, and I’ve watched how she keeps everything interesting, original and fresh.
A question-setter must make sure each question is unambiguous and that the correct answer is clear and straightforward, not a matter of opinion, a value judgement or open to question for any reason whatsoever. Quizzers will challenge questions they don’t like and if the field loses their respect for the quizmaster, things can turn quite ugly… no one wants that (except in fiction, of course!)
Your novels are always very clever and intricate, and The Killer Question is no exception. How do you keep track of the various threads, clues and red herrings while you write?
Wish I knew! I start each story without making any plans and the whole process is a joyous romp to the end over around six months. I like to follow the story as it happens, let the characters lead me through it and write the book almost as if I were a reader, discovering each new page as it’s turned. Once the first draft is done, well, that’s when the rewriting and editing can begin… While I’m writing a story, I seem able to keep a lot of information in my head. Having said that, occasionally a thread, a character or a cliffhanger falls by the wayside and I reach the end of the first draft only to discover I forgot about it entirely half way through.
Not only are they clever, but your books are always funny too! How important is humour in your novels?
Thank you! Finding comedy even in the darkest moments comes naturally to me, but in my books I’m always very careful to keep it authentic to the character and narrative. You can hit upon the funniest line ever, but if there isn’t a character who would naturally and realistically say it at that moment, you simply can’t use it. Also, humour has to be very carefully balanced if you want to build tension, because a joke in the wrong place (even if it might happen in real life) will disperse any hard-won suspense in a split second.
What are some other genre-busting crime novels you would recommend to readers?
I’m not sure if these are genre busting or not, but Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak is a blend of ghost story and crime novel with a strong visual element – similarly Strange Houses and Strange Pictures both by Uketsu are amazingly fresh and different reads.
