The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz - This is one of the cleverest and most entertaining takes on a crime detective novel that I've ever read. Author Anthony Horowitz writes himself into the story, as himself, a best-selling author who is talked into writing a novel about a former police detective working on a murder case. Daniel Hawthorne is a private investigator working on a curious murder case and approaches Horowitz to write about it. Questioning his own judgement, Horowitz is intrigued by the case and by the challenge of writing about Hawthorne's brilliant but unconventional methods and finds himself tagging along and taking notes as Hawthorne visits crime scenes and interviews people associated with the victim.
The story is an account of the investigation, told in first person by Horowitz, interspersed with an account of his writing decisions and reactions to Hawthorne. The murder case itself is an interesting one, with a woman planning her own funeral and then being strangled later the same day. Is it related to an automobile accident years earlier, or to the woman's son who is a well-known actor, or something else? The funeral service turns out to be quite bizarre, and then the son is also murdered, and the whole time Horowitz is trying to help process the clues while also trying to understand enough of Hawthorne's character and methods to make a novel out of the case. And to convince himself and his agent that the story idea is a good one.
From the publisher:
New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty, Anthony Horowitz has yet again brilliantly reinvented the classic crime novel, this time writing a fictional version of himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes.
A woman crosses a London street. It is just after 11 a.m. on a bright spring morning, and she is going into a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later the woman is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home.
Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric man as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. And Hawthorne has a partner, the celebrated novelist Anthony Horowitz, curious about the case and looking for new material. As brusque, impatient, and annoying as Hawthorne can be, Horowitz―a seasoned hand when it comes to crime stories―suspects the detective may be on to something, and is irresistably drawn into the mystery.
But as the case unfolds, Horowitz realizes that he's at the center of a story he can't control, and his brilliant partner may be hiding dark and mysterious secrets of his own.
This is a book with a self-insert by an author (#47) for The 52 Book Club's 2024 Reading Challenge.
#the52bookclub #the52bookclub2024
This post contains affiliate links - using affiliate links from Just A Second helps supply books and coffee.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
