The Word Is Murder (A Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery)

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A woman has already planned her own funeral, but when she is found dead six hours after she finalizes the arrangements, it has the police wondering if she planned her own death, too? As fun as it might be to overlap truth and imagination, this element alone wouldn’t exactly make for a good novel, especially not a good murder mystery. Rest assured, Horowitz spent as much effort in crafting the mystery as he did in making his character dislike every one of Hawthorne’s bad habits. His new play 'Mindgame' is about to open at London's Vaudeville theatre, and on opening night, Sunday Times critic Harriet Throsby gives the play a savage review. My writing has saved me,” he says. “Simple as that.” He looks sheepish, before breaking into a smile. “When I was 10, and inadequate in many ways, writing was a lifeline. Now I have my life pretty much sorted out. In a world where everything seems to be uncertain, writing is the only certainty I have.” THE WORD IS MURDER is an Anthony Horowitz novel, starring himself as a Watson-figure to fictional detective Daniel Hawthorne, in a murder investigation that blends reality and fiction in a masterful way, while telling a solidly plotted mystery.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Cleverly plotted, evenly paced, and reminiscent of classic detective stories with an ending that is almost impossible to predict, The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz is an absorbing read. I was a bit wary of the fact that the author writes himself as one of the main characters in the plot, but I must say he does so quite effectively and the dynamic between Horowitz and Hawthorne makes for some truly entertaining moments. The mystery was well-crafted and held my interest as the plot progressed. The final reveal truly surprised me, which is always a good thing. I did feel, however, that the segments leading up to the collaboration between the duo, could have been a tad shorter, but this in no way detracted from my overall reading experience. I paired my reading with the incredible audio narration by Rory Kinnear. Immersion reading at its best! In "The Word is Murder" Anthony Horowitz (ostensibly) accompanies detective Daniel Hawthorne on an investigation, then writes a book (this one) about the case. The Word Is Murder starts with a typically descriptive narrative and soon states ironically, “Diana Cowper had planned her funeral and she was going to need it. She was murdered about six hours later that same day.” This murder mystery, which forms the basis of the rest of the novel, is full of plot twists that will lead readers on a merry chase through several English locales in an attempt to identify a killer. When detective Daniel Hawthorne approaches author Anthony Horowitz to write a novel about his work, Horowitz reluctantly agrees. As a result, he is drawn into a murder mystery that might be more dangerous than he could anticipate. Principal charactersHOROWITZ: My father was connected with politicians and quite powerful businessmen. And what happened was that he died bankrupt, having put his money into a bank without telling my mother which bank it was. So she went from being a wealthy, socialite wife to being a bankrupt widow, you know, in a minute. And that changed the trajectory of all of our lives. Clever! Brilliant! I don’t think I will ever write a review for this author’s work without those two words included. Six hours after widowed London socialite Diana Cowper calls on mortician Robert Cornwallis to make arrangements for her own funeral, she’s suddenly in need of them after getting strangled in her home. The Met calls on murder specialist Daniel Hawthorne, an ex-DI bounced off the force for reasons he’d rather not talk about, and he calls on the narrator (“nobody ever calls me Tony”), a writer in between projects whose agent expects him to be working on The House of Silk, a Holmes-ian pastiche which Horowitz happens to have published in real life. Anthony’s agreement with Hawthorne to collaborate on a true-crime account of the case is guaranteed to blindside his agent (in a bad way) and most readers (in entrancingly good ways). Diana Cowper, it turns out, is not only the mother of movie star Damian Cowper, but someone who had her own brush with fame 10 years ago when she accidentally ran over a pair of 8-year-old twins, killing Timothy Godwin and leaving Jeremy Godwin forever brain-damaged. A text message Diana sent Damian moments before her death—“I have seen the boy who was lacerated and I’m afraid”—implicates both Jeremy, who couldn’t possibly have killed her, and the twins’ estranged parents, Alan and Judith Godwin, who certainly could have. But which of them, or which other imaginable suspect, would have sneaked a totally unpredictable surprise into her coffin and then rushed out to commit another murder? HOROWITZ: Yes, it is absolutely true. I mean, I had a very unusual upbringing as a child. My parents are very wealthy, and I never say that I had an unhappy childhood. I don't like to hear those words come out of my mouth with the knowledge that there are many, many children in the world who have childhood that is much, much less privileged than mine ever was.

Death for me had always been little more than a necessity, something that moved the plot on. But standing in the bedroom of a woman who had so recently died, I could feel it right there beside me." SIMON: I wonder if that put, in your mind, a determination to kind of get to the bottom of things in your stories. It is a theme that emerges in the new novel. The Word Is Murder is first in a series about Hawthorne, an ex-cop turned gumshoe who seems to be straight out of central casting: ageing loner, problems with authority, smoker, secretive, divorced. But, as the novel progresses, the carapace is demolished and, Horowitz promises, the next eight or nine books (he is undecided) will provide surprising revelations. This was my third adult novel penned by the talented Anthony Horowitz. They have all been great diversions paired with excellent writing. Both Magpie Murders and The House of Silk are on my favorites list. This one comes very close to both, but those wowed me just a wee bit more. I would not hesitate to recommend any of the three if you are a mystery lover! I understand there is a second in the series coming out in November, and I can’t wait to grab it and follow more of Hawthorne and Horowitz’s escapades in that one. I hope we can unravel some more of Hawthorne’s secrets next!The mystery itself is gloriously twisty with proper clues and proper red herrings – in a way it feels like a homage to those crime stories of old, but now in a very modern setting – it is endlessly charming and utterly engrossing, I devoured it with all the fervour of the religiously converted. 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. They’re not called murder victim stories. They’re not called criminal stories. They’re called detective stories. There’s a reason for that. I’m taking a big risk here. If you solve this crime right now, I won’t have anything to write about. Worse than that, if you don’t solve it at all, it’ll be a complete waste of time. So getting to know you matters. If I know you, if I can find something that makes you more… human, at least that’s a start. So you can’t just brush aside every question I ask you. You can’t hide behind this wall." And what they know is this !!!. A woman walks into a funeral parlour, in South Kensington, and arranges her own funeral, right down to the last detail. And on the same day, six hours later, she is found strangled in her own home. A woman who did not have an enemy in the world and liked by everyone.