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?

Books: The Word is Murder By Anthony Horowitz (2017)

"One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper – the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who’s as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz. Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying but even so his latest case with its many twists and turns proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own."

Even though I read the premise of the book, I was a bit hesitant at first to actually read it. The whole idea of a real-life author inserting himself into the story was and is a risky thing –I remember the criticism Stephen King got when he incorporated himself in the later books of his Dark Tower series. It leaves the author open to being made fun of, other words, as well as being a distracting element within the tale they’re writing. So the big question was how it was going to be handled. For the most part, The Word is Murder is an excellent whodunit, a well constructed mystery with doses of humor, memoir, how TV shows are created, and how to write essays. 

Anthony Horowitz remains a prolific novelist (some 40 plus novels, multiple collections, graphic novels, and even movie scripts). He’s also the creator of the long-running  BBC series Midsomer Murders (adapted from the Caroline Graham Chief Inspector Barnaby book series) and Foyle’s War. He’s also written for other classic British whodunit series such as Agatha Christie’s Poirot, as well as Robin of Sherwood. He’s also well known for his James Bond inspired young adult series Alex Rider (and was also chosen by the Estate of Ian Fleming to continue writing James Bond inspired novels, including 2015’s Trigger Mortis and 2018’s Forever and A Day). Finally, he’s also penned two Sherlock Holms novels, The House of Silk (2011) and Morairty (2014).

This newest series, called Hawthorne, resembles Sherlock Holmes –the ex-police officer notices a great deal and has the ability to make leaps of random reasoning. Hawthorne, like Holmes, also comes across as dispassionate, cold, and arrogant. He kind of reminded me a bit of Cormoran Strike series, written by J.K. Rowling and published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Strike too is a bit offensive at times, even cruel. Another trait Horowitz’s gives Hawthorne that resembles Holmes is his flair for showmanship, often keeping his methods and evidence hidden until the last possible moment so as to impress observers –or in this matter, writer Anthony Horowitz. 

Even if you might consider the book self-indulgent of Horowitz, I admit it was a clever murder mystery. There was no obvious clues dropped that would make the reader guess who the killer was and there are plenty of red herrings to keep you turning the page. 

So it’s a tricky mystery that springs some surprises and one that doesn’t insult the reader with obviousness that befalls a lot of this genre over the last thirty or so years. 

Books: Magpie Murders By Anthony Horowitz (2017)

“When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job. Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder.”

Anthony Horowitz is a prolific British novelist and creator of such BBC TV series such as Midsomer Murders (adapted from the Caroline Graham Chief Inspector Barnaby book series) and Foyle’s War. He’s also written for other classic British whodunit series such as Agatha Christie’s Poirot, as well as Robin of Sherwood. He’s also well known for his James Bond inspired young adult series Alex Rider (and was chosen by the Estate of Ian Fleming to continue writing Bond inspired novels, such as 2015’s Trigger Mortis and this year’s Forever and A Day). Finally, he’s also penned two Sherlock Holms novels, The House of Silk (2011) and Morairty (2014).

So with this pedigree, perhaps, he might be one of the few writers of classic British whodunits that could de-construct and re-construct this long loved literary genre. And while 19th Century writer Wilkie Collins is considered the great-grandfather of modern English detective books, it’s early 20th Century writers like Christie and Sayers that brought the format to a wider audience. And it’s with these giants, that Horowitz gives us Magpie Murders, a brilliant whodunit wrapped within a whodunit.

So what we get is the basic Agatha Christie set-up: a sleepy English village that has an unexpected death, followed by another. Then there is a foreign detective, who has pedantic habits, who arrives and must sift through a host of potential suspects, all with secrets to hide. But while the Magpie Murders are set in 1955, Howorwitz’s also sets up another mystery within contemporary London.

What I found intriguing about the book was the subtext (and very truthful note) that the famous writers of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, James Bond and Tin Tin creator Hergé grew to hate these literary heroes as the years passed. That while these legendary authors were hugely rewarded for their tomes –both monetarily and historically- they always felt trapped by them as well, that being singularly remembered for them was diminishing the work they thought they were meant to write (sort of like what happened to Alec Guinness who hated the idea that after his long-life in theater and Ealing films of the 1960s, he’ll always be remembered as Obi Wan Kenobi). Horowitz’s Alan Conway had the same emotional hatred for his own creation, the Germany-born Atticus Pünt.

I did figure out whodunit –at least the one set in contemporary times- mostly because it made logical sense (and this was before Horowitz did give the reader another trope of the genre, the “coincidence”. This is also, I think, a slight at the format as well; as modern mysteries tend to not have the detectives use logic and calculation to solve the murders, but there is some always some bit of convenience and happenstance that brings everything across the finish line).

I enjoyed the book immensely, even though I disliked some of the explanation of what lead author Alan Conway to divorce his wife (and it was not because Conway had come out). It seemed too typical of a trope, the woman blaming herself. Blah, it left a distaste in my mouth.

But overall, the book is pretty well constructed, a real great page-turner. It takes a classic format and gives it new life, but also gives us a dark look into popular authors who’ve created popular characters in long-running series: do some regret creating such successful novels (because it’s made them really wealthy) when they truly want to be remembered for something completely different, something where the money is not important?

Hello, George Lucas.