The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett
A destined cult classic
I’ll tell you a little something about me. I love cults. Wait, don’t go yet! I mean that I love learning about cults and how they work. You give me a documentary or a book about cults, and I’m there.1 So when I saw The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels hit roughly 1000 Best of 2024 lists, I was immediately drawn to it. When I cracked the first page and saw that it was an epistolary novel2, I was as happy as Jim Jones at an amphetamine taste test.
Fortunately, Janice Hallett did not disappoint.
Shameless Promotion
Spoiler-Free Summary
Amanda Bailey is a journalist in search of a story. When she’s offered the chance to write for a new series of true-crime stories, she takes the job just for the job. Her assigned case: The Alperton Angels, a cult that resulted in a mass suicide nearly two decades ago. There was a baby at the center of the case that has been missing since, and Amanda is determined to find it now that it is 18 years old. Her rival: Oliver Menzies, a differently but equally talented journalist taking on the same case. Forced together against their better judgment, Amanda and Oliver come to understand the Alperton case is not just another job, and they are not just any journalists.
The Good
I apologize in advance to my keyboard. I’m going to have a lot to say in this section.
First, I love an epistolary story. You see, there’s this kind of meta-problem3 with a lot of books, which is that there’s no reason for them to exist. Why is this character telling the story? Who exactly do they imagine they are telling it to? There’s a few ways around this, first among them just placing the book in 3rd person. Now no one is telling the story, you as a reader are just observing it. Another solution might be to give the reader an identity in the novel as well. Some thrillers employ this technique as their big twist, wherein we discover that the narrator actually had a role we were unaware of throughout the story and they are telling it to us because we too have a role to which we were similarly not privy. There’s countless other creative ways to handle this issue.
Among my favorite, however, is the epistolary novel where it exists because it’s not a novel at all, it is a collection of artifacts of the story. You get the sense that you’ve stumbled upon an old file box of letters, printouts, books, and other assorted evidence of this tale that you piece together yourself by rummaging through them. It immediately places the novel in the real world, and handled well, engenders a feeling of discovery and revelation.4
I hadn’t read anything by Hallett prior to The Mysterious Case Of The Alperton Angels (henceforth referred to as “Alperton Angels” for brevity), but some quick research says that all of her books are written in this style, and I can see why. Hallett is masterful at the form. The language feels so natural and right, as the characters’ tone and diction change with who they are talking to, and in what format. WhatsApp messages are casual and filled with emojis, while emails to request interviews are formal and crafted with care to entice the recipient to respond. That takes some serious writing chops but the effect is wonderful and makes the world feel so real.
Let’s get to the story itself. This is a novel about obsession, in many forms. The cult members, the journalists, and others ancillary to the story are all grappling with their pre-occupation with the central story, often to the detriment of other things in their life or each other. I’m wrestling with how to say this without spoiling anything, but by the end of the novel even you, the reader, are found to have an obsession. In the days following finishing this book, I kept thinking of new angles in which this impacted the story. How character X could have helped character Y if only X wasn’t so focused on Z. It’s dense and thought-provoking, but without ever straying into camp or boredom.
The plot is captivating as well, and an example of mystery done right. I read a lot of mystery (as you may have surmised if you’ve been following along with this venture) and all too often, authors will treat their plot like a jigsaw puzzle: dump all of the pieces out, scatter them around, then reveal at the end that voila, they form a cohesive picture. That’s fine, but not really what makes the best mystery plot. What’s much more effective, in my opinion, is to treat the plot like zooming out from a very close shot of the center of a painting. The movie this camera captures (the plot of the book, to follow the analogy) is interesting from the first frame. You can see a carefully crafted image and vibrant colors, even if you sense there’s more outside of the frame you can see. Then, the camera slowly zooms out. As it does, more aspects of the image come into view, as well as how they relate to the image you can already see. This continues, building on what you are already aware of, adding context to your knowledge, surprising you on occasion, or sometimes even leading you to interpret a new image one way until the zoom out reveals even more of it and you realize it’s something different entirely. Eventually, the camera reveals the entire frame of the painting, and the gestalt clicks into place in your mind, complete with the gilded edges. Pretentiously, I’ll refer to this as The Expanding Frame.5
Hallett, I suspect, agrees with me. The initial mystery here is compelling. What happened to the Alperton Angels? Where did that baby and it’s parents go? Why weren’t they found? You’re immediately in the mix, and furthermore, you’re learning about the characters that you’ll follow throughout the rest of the story, and learning to love and care about them. Then the frame starts expanding slowly and you start to see that this case is much larger than the sensational murder scene that was in the headlines. Others that were affected by the case start to enter the frame at the edges. People you thought were at the center are revealed to be at the fringe, and vice versa. Meanwhile, the characters you thought were behind the camera with you turn out to be in the painting. It almost gets to be too much, and just then, you see the frame of the painting and it all solidifies, just in time to realize what that implies for the brushstrokes you’ve been following all along. It’s quite something.
The twists are similarly handled impressively, where they come as a shock but also feel inevitable. I don’t want to say too much here for risk of ruining your experience, but you’ll find yourself gasping in shock while simultaneously saying “I knew it.” It’s a great feeling.
I know I’ve gotten off on a bit of a ramble. Substack gives you this little widget that says how long your post will take to read. I’m currently at the amount I usually hit for an entire review, and I’ve got a ways to go. So I’m going to end this section here, but let’s put it this way: There is a LOT to like in this novel.
The Bad
I’ve got much less to say here, but I will give two points.
Due to the nature of epistolary novels in modern times, you are not going to find much in the way of flowery language here. This is by design, as normal people don’t talk that way and there’s no narrator to speak outside of every day language. Thus, if you’re the kind of reader who looks for beautiful turns of phrase and poetic passages, you’ll be disappointed.
The second point here is as much my “fault” as the novels - there are a few graphics in the novel, and in one small section, there are images of post-it notes on the pages, as though a character has also read this bit and taken notes. I read this on an e-reader, and the post-its were particularly hard to read (handwriting font and very small) with no way to zoom in. I was able to make them out, but it required putting my nose on the screen, which was somewhat undignified.
Memorable Quotes
As mentioned above, since The Alperton Angels is written entirely in the words of it’s characters, there are few passages that sound like they belong here. I did save the following:
You can put him in a cage for fifty years, the second he’s released he’ll go back to his old ways. It’s all he knows. He’s a spider. The only thing he can do is spin a web.
Bird’s gotta fly, fish’s gotta swim, spider’s gotta spin webs. And catch thieves, just like flies. Look out.
Personal Experience
This was my kind of book. I was enthralled the whole way through, and couldn’t wait to get back to it each day. The structure and plot were unique, the characters were lovable and interesting, and I thought about it for days. It had a lot to say about obsession and human nature, but doesn’t “preach” its message by sacrificing story. I loved it, plain and simple.
Who Should Read This?
Rating
The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels is the first book in my review series to receive a perfect 5/5 Marshall Applewhite’s.
And, again, if you would also like to read this book, you can get a copy here or here.
Next Up
I had many plans until my pre-order of the latest Parker and Pentecost came in, and, well, I have no choice. You understand.
Until then, don’t drink the Kool-Aid.6
Among my favorites on this front: Wild Wild Country, Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God, Going Clear, The Way Down
A story comprised entirely of “found” text, most commonly a series of (fictional) letters between two characters. It can also comprise (also all fictional) news clippings, transcriptions of audio recordings, excerpts from other books, etc. Famously, Dracula by Bram Stoker is one such example.
As opposed to a Meta problem, which is a different thing entirely.
For a real trip, I recommend S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst, which can only be read in paper format because the true story is revealed by things stuck in the pages, post-its attached to various bits, notes in the margins in different pen colors…it’s one of the most unique reading experiences you’re likely to ever have.
I’m sure some literary critic much smarter than me has either made this analogy before or a better one to describe the same concept. No need to send it my way, it’ll only make me feel bad.
I know it was Flavor-Aid, alright? But that’s not the idiom.