"One of the most entertaining mysteries of the year. It's also one of the most stimulating, as it ponders such questions as: Which is of greater interest to the reader, the crime or the detective? And: Is the pencil truly mightier than the butcher knife?" — Wall Street Journal
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.
A woman crosses a London street. It is just after 11 a.m. on a bright spring morning, and she is going into a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later the woman is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home.
Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric man as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. And Hawthorne has a partner, the celebrated novelist Anthony Horowitz, curious about the case and looking for new material. As brusque, impatient, and annoying as Hawthorne can be, Horowitz—a seasoned hand when it comes to crime stories—suspects the detective may be on to something, and is irresistibly drawn into the mystery.
But as the case unfolds, Horowitz realizes that he's at the center of a story he can't control, and his brilliant partner may be hiding dark and mysterious secrets of his own.
"One of the most entertaining mysteries of the year. It's also one of the most stimulating, as it ponders such questions as: Which is of greater interest to the reader, the crime or the detective? And: Is the pencil truly mightier than the butcher knife?" — Wall Street Journal
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.
A woman crosses a London street. It is just after 11 a.m. on a bright spring morning, and she is going into a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later the woman is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home.
Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric man as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. And Hawthorne has a partner, the celebrated novelist Anthony Horowitz, curious about the case and looking for new material. As brusque, impatient, and annoying as Hawthorne can be, Horowitz—a seasoned hand when it comes to crime stories—suspects the detective may be on to something, and is irresistibly drawn into the mystery.
But as the case unfolds, Horowitz realizes that he's at the center of a story he can't control, and his brilliant partner may be hiding dark and mysterious secrets of his own.
Critiques-
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Starred review from February 26, 2018
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.). -
March 1, 2018
Television writer/Christie-loving Sherlock-ian Horowitz (Magpie Murders, 2017, etc.) spins a fiendishly clever puzzle about a television writer/Christie-loving Sherlock-ian named Anthony Something who partners with a modern Sherlock Holmes to solve a baffling case.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?Though the impatient, tightfisted, homophobic lead detective is impossible to love, the mind-boggling plot triumphs over its characters: Sharp-witted readers who think they've solved the puzzle early on can rest assured that they've opened only one of many dazzling Christmas packages Horowitz has left beautifully wrapped under the tree.COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Starred review from July 30, 2018
Voice actor Kinnear sounds playfully peevish and impatient when portraying the narrator of Horowitz’s hugely entertaining whodunit, adding to the novel’s sense of fun. Daniel Hawthorne, a respected former Metro policeman who has been hired to consult on a strange murder case, pressures popular novelist Anthony Horowitz (a fictionalized version of the author himself) to write a book about him and his investigation. Diana Cowper, a well-to-do widow, has been strangled in her London residence, and Hawthorne and Horowitz’s investigation leads them to the scene of a long-ago tragedy at a seaside resort in Kent and another murder. Horowitz isn’t the only “real” person to appear in the story; directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson appear and, along with an assortment of colorful suspects, are smoothly enacted by Kinnear. Horowitz’s mystery is as cleverly constructed as the classic whodunits of the golden age, populated by fascinating characters and peppered with fair-play clues. Kinnear’s faultless delivery is completely in tune with the author’s ability to mix murder and mirth. A Harper hardcover. -
April 1, 2018
The source of hit TV shows such as the BAFTA-winning Foyle's War and the New York Times best-selling Moriarty, Horowitz offers meta-mystery that opens with a woman arranging her own funeral shortly before she's strangled to death. Famously difficult detective Daniel Hawthorne gets the case but, fortunately, he has novelist Anthony Horowitz as a partner.
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Booklist (starred review)
"Actually, the word is not murder, it's ingenious. . . . A masterful meta-mystery." — Booklist (starred review)
"Sharp-witted readers who think they've solved the puzzle early on can rest assured that they've opened only one of many dazzling Christmas packages Horowitz has left beautifully wrapped under the tree." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"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." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Horowitz is undeniably brilliant." — Metro London
"The beguiling whodunit plot is dispatched with characteristic élan as Horowitz blurs the line between fiction and reality... there is no denying the sheer ingenuity of the central notion." — The Financial Times
"The Word Is Murder is an intriguing labyrinth of whodunnits and a true page-turner throughout ." — Real Crime Magazine
"An ingenious funhouse mirror of a novel sets a vintage 'cozy' mystery inside a modern frame." — Wall Street Journal
"Irresistible ... What can't this supremely versatile writer do?" — USA Today
"Horowitz succeeds with The Word Is Murder by simultaneously adhering to and defying the rules of a traditional mystery." — Christian Science Monitor
"The Word Is Murder is full of surprises and suspense...hugely entertaining. It is a special treat for those who want to read crime mysteries." — Washington Post Book Review
"The Word Is Murder, with its dry tone and insider anecdotes about publishing and the movie business, is certainly one of the most entertaining mysteries of the year. It's also one of the most stimulating, as it ponders such questions as: Which is of greater interest to the reader, the crime or the detective? And: Is the pencil truly mightier than the butcher knife?" — Wall Street Journal
