Books: The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz (2019)

 

“You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late . . . “

"These, heard over the phone, were the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death in his bachelor pad with a bottle of wine—a 1982 Chateau Lafite worth £3,000, to be precise. Odd, considering he didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on the wall by the killer? And, most importantly, which of the man’s many, many enemies did the deed? Baffled, the police are forced to bring in Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, the author Anthony, who’s really getting rather good at this murder investigation business. But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide. As our reluctant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case, he realizes that these secrets must be exposed—even at the risk of death."

While a fairly well paced whodunit, I’m still sort of put-off by author Anthony Horowitz putting himself as a character in his own book. As I wrote about in the first book in this series, The Word is Murder, I find it a distracting element. Again, he puts himself in a position of looking like an idiot.

As all books in this genre, The Sentence is Death has many twists and turns, a few red herrings, and everyone with a motive for murder. Daniel Hawthorne, the ex-cop that Horowitz’s hyper-reality version of himself tags along with, remains somewhat of an unlikable character. His sexism, his homophobia appears to be justified and accepted, if only because he’s “brilliant” detective. He, and fellow cops Cara Grunshaw and DC Mills, are awful people, but not in a creative, realistic way; they’re awful because the story requires them to be terrible human beings (I mean, why are Mills and Grunshaw so hostile –there’s never a reason given). We also get a few drips and drabs of Hawthorne’s personal life, but in the end, they don’t add up to anything. I know the British writers have a tendency to put unlikable hero’s front and center because it makes them flawed individuals, but it also has a tendency to make them look like two-dimensional cartoon characters if not done right. And at times all three detectives come off as jerks, with –again- no reason given for their personal flaws. So they grate on ones nerves –which a reader should not be put through.

While Horowitz’s creates a large puzzle here, a lot of felt unnecessary and seemed designed to make the book longer than it should. It makes me wonder if I’ll read a third book in this series, but who knows?