This is NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Glenn Weldon. Today we've got a couple of whodunnits that it might be more accurate to call why done it's. In a minute, we'll hear about a book that turns the traditional mystery novel on its head, revealing the murderer up front to instead spend its time slowly unpacking the motive behind the deadly act. First up, there was a mystery novel that

starts off in the usual way with the discovery of a body, but in Janice Hallett's The Killer

Question, the apparent motive for the murder is tied to the world of British pub quizzes. Now,

anyone who's ever taken part in trivia night at a bar knows that tempers can run hot, even when the

prize pot is small.

As Hallett told NPR Scott Simon, it's not the money that matters to pub quizzers.

It's about playing by the rules.

And when you break those rules, well, the consequences can be anything but trivial.

Here's Scott.

Okay, here's the pitch to Netflix for True Crime Doc from a producer, Dominic Eastwood,

his aunt and uncle, Sue and Mal, run a country pub called The Case Is Altered that offers

a Monday night trivia quiz, but a new team calling themselves the Shadow Nights become so successful, eyebrows are raised, egos are hurt,

then a body is found in the river. Emails, WhatsApp, and text messages fly. Who would cheat,

much less murder for a prize that's barely $25. The killer question is the new mystery novel by Janice Hallett, former journalist and

government speechwriter who joins us now from London.

Thanks so much for being with us.

Well, thank you for having me, Scott.

It's delightful to be here.

You enjoy a pub quiz yourself, I gather.

Yep.

I'm a member of a pub quiz team, and we win sometimes. We come bottom sometimes,

and mostly we're mid-table.

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