Reviewed by Ella Law (with Gemini & NotebookLM)

Published February 6, 2026

Content Rating

CSR Rating: 🟡 CSR-3 Teen & YA – Contains Mature Themes

Content Warnings:🩸 Violence, ⚰️ Death & Grief, 💊 Addiction/Substance Abuse, 🧠 Mental Health

While the narrative style is often humorous and “cozy,” the underlying plot involves multiple murders by blunt force trauma, the discovery of a decomposing body in a river, and significant storylines revolving around drug trafficking and addiction. There are also references to historic mercy killings and the exploitation of vulnerable people.

📖 Introduction & Why This Book Matters

The Killer Question avoids traditional narration, opting instead for a meta-fictional frame: the entire book is presented as a dossier of evidence pitched to a production agent. Through a series of emails, Dominic Eastwood sends the "script" for a proposed six-part Netflix docuseries to agent Polly Baker. He attaches the story in batches—comprising text messages, police transcripts, and newspaper clippings—asking her (and effectively the reader) to piece together the truth about the murders involving his aunt and uncle.

This book matters because it explores the uncomfortable truth that multiple versions of a person can exist at once, and over the course of their lives. It challenges the reader to reconcile how people capable of terrible violence can also be sources of genuine kindness. We see characters who are cold-blooded murderers also display immense generosity, such as taking in a homeless teenager, giving her a job, and a safe place to sleep without hesitation. Hallett forces us to ask if a "bad" person can do "good" things, and whether one set of actions cancels out the other, or if they simply coexist in a complex, messy reality.

✍️ Plot Summary

Welcome to The Case is Altered, a struggling countryside pub run by husband-and-wife ex-police officers, Sue and Mal Eastwood. In an effort to revive the business, they launch a weekly quiz night that quickly becomes the obsession of the local community. There’s the “Sturdy Challengers,” led by the ultra-competitive Chris; the “Spokespersons” cycling team; and a motley crew of young friends known as “Ami’s Manic Carrots”.

The competitive banter takes a dark turn when Luke Goode, a local troublemaker, is thrown out of the pub and later found dead in the nearby river. As the police investigation circles the pub, a mysterious new quiz team arrives: The Shadow Knights. They are unbeatable, enigmatic, and seem to know far more about Sue and Mal than a random trivia team should.

Presented as a dossier of evidence for a proposed Netflix documentary, the story tracks the escalating tension between the regulars and the newcomers. Can you parse through the digital noise to answer the ultimate question: Who is really running The Case is Altered?

💡 Key Takeaways & Insights

1. Obsession acts as a blinder The character of Chris Thorogood exemplifies how obsession can distort reality. He becomes so fixated on proving The Shadow Knights are cheating at the quiz that he completely misses the sinister reality unfolding around him. While he spirals over perceived hints from Mal about the quiz, actual crimes are being covered up in plain sight.

2. Identity is a performance The book constantly plays with the idea of roles. We see actors playing grieving parents in a police sting (Operation Honeyguide), undercover cops playing quizzers, and murderers playing landlords. Hallett suggests that if you commit to a role hard enough—whether it’s a “plucky loser” or a “community pillar”—the world will believe you, even when the evidence suggests otherwise.

3. The medium is the message The format of the book highlights how disjointed modern communication is. We see characters say one thing in a public WhatsApp group and the exact opposite in a private text seconds later. The truth is rarely found in what is broadcast, but rather in the private asides and the silences between messages.

4. Grief is a form of love Despite the crime elements, the motivation for many characters is rooted in deep loss. Chris and Lorraine quiz to fill the void left by their deceased son; Dee Obasi creates an entire police operation to honor her dead friend, Nat. This theme extends to the supporting cast: the actors Ian and Tanya Frost help Dee in her original sting, motivated by the recent loss of their mother to predatory criminals. Even the narrator, Dominic, is motivated to uncover the truth by the loss of his aunt and uncle. The book posits that grief can drive people to do incredible, and sometimes terrible, things.

🤯 The Most Interesting or Unexpected Part (**SPOILERS**)

The most brilliant sequence of “cat and mouse” begins when Mal tries to entrap The Shadow Knights during the final quiz tiebreaker. Mal, suspecting The Shadow Knights are cheating, presents a “killer question” in a sudden-death round: “Exactly how have The Shadow Knights been cheating their way to victory for the last ten weeks?”

It is a perfect Catch-22: if they answer correctly, they admit to cheating and are disqualified; if they stay silent, they lose the point. However, the trap backfires spectacularly. Instead of cowering, “The General” (leader of The Shadow Knights) stands up and reveals that they didn’t come to win, but to watch. He exposes “Sue and Mal” not just as corrupt former police officers who conned victims, but—in a twist delivered by his colleague Cloud—as impostors entirely.

🏛️ How This Book Applies to Real Life

This book serves as a satirical mirror to our own digital lives. It highlights the absurdity of online reviews and neighborhood group chats, where petty grievances are treated with undue gravity. It asks us to question how well we actually know the people we interact with daily—the barista, the landlord, the teammate —and whether knowing about their past even matters.

Who should read The Killer Question?

• True Crime Fans: Those who love the process of piecing together evidence and spotting inconsistencies in witness statements.

• Puzzle Lovers: Readers who enjoy Wordle, Only Connect, or solving riddles will love the embedded trivia and wordplay.

• Audiobook Listeners: The format shines when performed by a cast, turning the reading experience into an immersive radio play.

📚 Final Rating: 3.8 / 5 Stars

This is a clever, twisting mystery, but it is best experienced as an audiobook. While the plot is intricate and the “one-star review” humor is sharp, the text-heavy format of emails and files can feel disjointed and annoying to read on the page. Furthermore, the characters are all deeply flawed; you may find yourself rooting for the mystery to be solved, but you won’t necessarily find a single character you genuinely like.

🎯 Should you read it? Yes, but listen to it. If you treat this as a radio drama or a podcast, it is compelling, funny, and tense. If you try to read it physically, the formatting may test your patience.

🔥 Final Thought In a world where everyone is curating their profile and performing a role, The Killer Question reminds us that the only thing harder than faking a life is getting away with it.