The Word Is Murder
Anthony Horowitz. Harper, $27.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-06-267678-8
This spectacular series launch from bestseller Horowitz (Magpie Murders), a scrupulously fair whodunit, features a fictionalized version of himself. The author’s doppelgänger—who, like his creator, has written a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, The House of Silk, and a Tintin movie script for Steven Spielberg—is approached by Daniel Hawthorne, a former detective inspector who once consulted on one of his TV series. Hawthorne wants Horowitz to turn his “real-life” cases into books, and eventually gets him to agree. Their first joint investigative venture concerns the strangulation of Diana Cowper in her London home, mere hours after she visited a funeral parlor and made detailed arrangements for her own funeral. (In one amusing metafictional scene, Hawthorne criticizes Horowitz for inaccuracies in chapter one, an omniscient third-person account of the funeral home visit.) An interrupted text Diana sent to her son shortly before her death leads the duo to look into a long-ago hit-and-run tragedy that claimed one twin child’s life and seriously injured the other. Deduction and wit are well-balanced, and fans of Peter Lovesey and other modern channelers of the spirit of the golden age of detection will clamor for more. Agent: Jonathan Lloyd, Curtis Brown (U.K.). (June)
Details
Reviewed on: 02/26/2018
Genre: Fiction
Compact Disc - 978-1-5385-4995-7
Downloadable Audio - 978-0-06-284834-5
Downloadable Audio - 978-1-4434-5642-5
MP3 CD - 978-1-5385-4996-4
Other - 400 pages - 978-1-4434-5549-7
Other - 432 pages - 978-0-06-267681-8
Paperback - 464 pages - 978-0-06-284586-3
Paperback - 432 pages - 978-0-06-267680-1
Paperback - 978-4-488-26509-0
Paperback - 978-89-329-2347-5
Paperback - 978-1-78614-063-0
Paperback - 400 pages - 978-1-78475-723-6
Pre-Recorded Audio Player - 978-1-9871-4314-0
