The Twyford Code

It's a unique set up where we find Stephen Smith fresh out of prison and obsessed with uncovering the mystery of something that happened when he was still in high school. He starts recording his exploration and we are presented with a transcript of his thoughts as he starts peeling back the layers.

Is this the ravings of a deluded conspiracy nut seeing unlikely patterns everywhere or is Stephen onto something, uncovering ciphers, cracking codes and connecting the dots? As he reconnects with former classmates it seems like there might be something bigger happening just at the periphery of his understanding.

But it wasn't connecting with me. The further I got into the story the more convoluted the mystery became, it wasn't until the end that I realized I'd been reading it wrong all along but by then all my literary goodwill had been squandered. The problem certainly lies with me, but I was more relieved than satisfied when the book finally came round to its explanatory conclusion.