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The word is murder : a novel
2018
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Library Journal Review
In Horowitz's second stand-alone adult novel (after Magpie Murders), the author plays a starring role, putting a real-world twist on a first-person narrative. Daniel -Hawthorne, an unlikable private detective, has been called in by the London police to help solve the murder of Diana Cowper. The mother of an up-and-coming actor, Cowper was killed on the day she arranged her own funeral. Horowitz is invited by Hawthorne to write a book about the crime and, not incidentally, split money from the book with Hawthorne. Horowitz is reluctantly intrigued with both the case and Hawthorne, a curmudgeon who reveals nothing about his personal life. A series of missteps by Horowitz annoys Hawthorne as he meticulously untangles the threads of the mystery, offending people as he goes. VERDICT A classic whodunit with a metatwist, this mystery opens the door to the world of publishing, theater, and television. Fans of Dorothy Sayers and the BBC's Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War (both written by Horowitz) will enjoy this novel. [See Prepub Alert, 12/11/17.]-Terry Lucas, Shelter Island P.L., NY © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
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) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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