The Killer Question by Janice Hallett

 

One of the best ways to drive traffic to a pub is to hold a weekly quiz.  Sue and Mal Eastwood have just reopened a vacant pub and they decide to do just that.  Soon they have a group of regulars.  There's the group of locals who usually win.  Their noses are put out of joint when a new group that no one knows starts to come and begins winning every week.  There's a group of cyclists, a group of married couples and a couple that is staying in a house boat at the dock.  

The Eastwoods are former police officers so when the local groups charges that the new group is cheating somehow, they believe they can solve the case.  Checking with other pub owners in the area, they find the new group has done the same at other pubs.  In the meantime, Sue decides to hire a lost, homeless college girl to work at the pub and live with them until she gets her feet under her.  Then one night a bunch a rowdies come to the pub and Mal must throw them out.  Later that week, the body of the worst of the rowdy group is found in the water at the end of the lane.  Who killed him and why?

Janice Hallett is an English author who worked first as a journalist, editor and government communicator.  She has a trademark style which is to tell the story through communications and this one uses that same format.  The story is advanced through the reading of texts, pub quiz categories along with the team compositions and scores, a group chat among pub owners in the locale and a text conversation between a young girl and a social worker.  There are also texts between Sus and Mal.  The story is slowly revealed and teased and there are so many twists and turns that the average person can get whiplash.  The book is recommended for mystery readers.