The new Hawthorne and Horowitz came out this week, so the time has come for a redux post for the very meta but very fun series from Anthony Horowitz. I have read the new book and it’s even more meta than ever – and I’ll get to that in a minute, but first your basic set up: a fictionalised version of Anthony Horowitz is the Watson figure to ex-policeman and now private investigator Daniel Hawthorne. At the start of the series in The Word is Murder Horowitz is chosen to be the ghost writer for Hawthorne, who is investigating the murder of a woman who was found dead hours after she visited a funeral directors to plan her own memorial. As you go through the series Hawthorne’s status increases as Horowitz’s seems to decrease and there are plenty of references to Horowitz’s real life and other works – including his other meta-mystery series featuring Atticus Pünd.
The latest is A Deadly Murder and I know I often say this will work best if you’ve read the others in the series but it’s especially true here – at least the first book – because the set up here is that The Word is Murder is being turned into a film – the script is written (not by Anthony), the roles are cast (the Anthony character is just called “the writer” and is played by an actor who is mid career crisis) and filming is underway (Hawthorne is a consultant and gets a car to set, Horowitz is not and does not). You won’t necessarily get spoiled for the outcome of that first book by reading this but you’ll definitely get more out of the story if you have. And I have to say I enjoyed this book so, so much. I basically read it in one evening – stopping only to eat my dinner – and it raced by so fast that I was sad and surprised when it was over. I have often said before that I prefer the Atticus Pünd series to this one – but perhaps this is the book that tips me over the other way. The whole series is really worth reading, but this one especially. And full respect to Anthony Horowitz for making his fictional self so downtrodden and behind the curve. The temptation as an author must surely be to make yourself the clever and popular one, but he’s really leaning into the Hastings (getting the wrong end of the stick) and Watson (only there because Holmes is) of it all. Just delightful.
Have a great weekend!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 