**A Guardian ’Best Thriller of the Year!’**
The New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty brilliantly reinvents the classic crime novel once again with this clever and inventive mystery starring a fictional version of the author himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes, investigating a case involving buried secrets, murder, and a trail of bloody clues.
A woman crosses … and a trail of bloody clues.
A woman crosses a London street.
It is just after 11am 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 he’s at the center of a story he can’t control . . . and that his brilliant partner may be hiding dark and mysterious secrets of his own.
A masterful and tricky mystery which plays games at many levels, The Word Is Murder is Anthony Horowitz at his very best.
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Like most of Horowitz’s work, this is highly original: a police procedural with a Dr. Watson-like first-person narrator who writes in the author’s voice, as if he (Anthony Horowitz) is reluctantly led through the unfolding investigation by the protagonist, an unlikeable rogue ex-detective. Full of interesting surprises and narrative tricks. First in what promises to be a trilogy.
I love the author’s writing style. It’s so easy to read with plenty of humor and unexpected twists and turns.
Anthony Horowitz continues to impress me as a mystery writer with “The Word is Murder.” A woman walks into a funeral parlor and plans her service. Six hours later, she’s found murdered. What follows is a fast-paced mystery that provided a surprise ending (and it’s tough for me to be surprised at the killer)!
Any contemporary British mystery writer who can effortlessly drop Ruth Rendell’s name in the plot of his mystery earns a big bravo from me. And to be transparent, I admit I did NOT guess the murderer. Reading to the end without figuring the killer is rare for me, but Horowitz is masterful. I loved the interplay between his role as author of a book proposed by a detective he doesn’t like and his real life as the author of one of my favorite TV shows, Foyle’s War. The opening carries the entire book: a middle-age woman makes arrangements for her funeral and is murdered the same day. If only I had read it more closely! According to Anthony Horowitz’s back jacket bio, he’s one of the UK’s most prolific writers. I plan to read more.
Great mystery!
I really enjoyed this unusual book. Anthony Horowitz has a great sense of humor and tremendous swagger. The story is well-told and he seems like a blast.
Who writes themselves into a book and then invents a conversation with Steven Spielberg? He has the balls of a burglar but somehow I found it entertaining and endearing more than arrogant and self-promoting.
Already looking forward to the next “Hawthorne” book.
A clever, twisty little murder mystery.
This is a whodunit based on a clever premise – the author himself becomes part of the investigation in a tribute to Sherlock Holmes. The author takes the Dr Watson role, narrating the story of consultant ex-cop, Hawthorne, who investigates the case.
Hawthorne is an enigmatic detective who misses nothing and is often several steps ahead of the people he’s interviewing and the narrator. The story moves along at a gentle, but intriguing pace with plenty of twists as suspects come and go. Horowitz desperately tries to find out something about Hawthorne’s character for the book he’s going to write about the investigation. This adds another layer of conflict to the proceedings.
The story’s well written, as you would expect, but I feel the author made too many references to himself and his catalogue of work, particularly Foyle’s War. These intrusions took me away from the story without telling me anything that contributed to it.
That aside, it’s an entertaining read.
The real-life author, Anthony Horowitz, reluctantly becomes the Dr. Watson to a taciturn, but brilliant former policeman who’d been called in by the Scotland Yard to help solve a crime. Not too bloody, and the plot kept me guessing until the end. And I’m still not sure which of Horowitz’s comments about his own life are true or embellished. Very entertaining.
Received an e-galley from the publisher through Edelweiss.
“The Word is Murder,” by Anthony Horowitz is a reimagined Holmes and Watson mystery. In a first person narrative, Horowitz tells a compelling modern day mystery with a version of himself as Watson and Hawthorne as Holmes.
The book opens in London when Diana Cowper, the mother of a famous actor, goes into a funeral parlor to plan and pay for her own service. Six hours later she is dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. The drama advances as the annoying Hawthorne approaches Horowitz to write a book featuring himself and his exploits as a detective.
The characters are familiar with the brilliant, eccentric, police detective Daniel Hawthorne as a modern Holmes. Hawthorne is curt, temperamental, and annoying; he is quick with an insult and focused on cracking the case at any cost. Horowitz, as Watson, finds himself working with a partner with secrets he cannot uncover and documenting a story he cannot control.
“The Word is Murder,” is one of the best modern adaptations of the classic Holmes and Watson relationship. This unusual partnership results in an irresistible tale with twists and turns on every page. The clues emerge gradually and are understated enough to fool even the most observant readers who may find that at end that previous solutions and identification were very wrong.
I listened to “The Word is Murder” as an audio book narrated by Rory Kinnear who did an excellent job with the voices of the diverse characters in the story. Many modern adaptations of Holmes pale in comparison to the original, holds its own ground. The good news is that this is but the first book in the Hawthorne series, and the second, “The Sentence is Death” is out now.
I liked this refreshing take on Sherlock Holmes type detectiving. It reads well and the solution makes sense. Go for it!
An excellent mystery with an interesting premise of the author being one of the characters.
The Word is Murder is about an established writer and an out-of-work detective joining forces to solve the murder of Diana Cowper. Detective Daniel Hawthorne is an ex-policeman working as a special consultant for Scotland Yard. He is a brilliant detective who notices the specific details. He’s a straight shooter calling it like he sees it. He is very observant and quite aware of his surroundings. Daniel has an extraordinary eye for details and uses this ability to analyze the individuals he interviews. Anthony is a well known children’s author who recently launched himself as an adult writer. Daniel commissioned Anthony to write his book. Anthony follows Daniel around taking notes while he interviews and investigates.
I enjoyed the scenes when they were working together. Anthony would teach Daniel how to write the book to make it appealing to readers while Daniel would teach Anthony how to notice the details. When the story was focused on the variable of the case I was most invested. At times Mr. Horowitz would go off on a tangent regarding plays, directors, and producers all of which didn’t aid in the progress of the story.
While I appreciate the concept of bridging a detective and a writer together to solve a crime, I’m not really invested in the process in which this concept was delivered. It read like a tutorial on how to write an adult detective story. It was difficult to follow this story as a investigation when it was being crowded by the concept of writing what was taking place. Instead of giving the reader investigative information pertinent to the crime the reader had to evaluate not only the work of the detective but the work of the writer as well. It was very overwhelming.
Originally I thought it was an interesting concept that Anthony used himself as a character. For awhile it worked. Later I grew tired of the overanalyzing of writing the detectives story by dissecting his character plucking away at the way he communicated with others, the way he read the scene of the crime, or the way he viewed others giving his opinion freely. I didn’t like the crassness of pushy judgement on the character. I just wanted to explore the different variables used to solve the crime not pick apart the detectives persona. I’m not sure why Mr. Horowitz had to make such a big deal about Hawthorne’s character. It wasn’t relevant to the story where he lived. Trying to characterize him was unnecessary.
Exploring every avenue meant an extensive list of suspects. While I usually struggle with character driven stories this one was quite easy to follow.
Anthony has come a long way from writing the Alex Rider series. As an adult I enjoyed that series. But this one doesn’t hold the same flare and style of writing. I was hoping to get some of that Diamond Brothers writing style. Those books were fantastic.
The story really came alive when the crime was solved and all the unexpected truths were announced.
Slow going with to many characters.
interesting concept, well done. The author is the narrator of the book, in which he is playing Watson to Hawthorne, a difficult but brilliant British detective.
If you want to read an updated Holmes and Watson sort of mystery, this is your book. An intriguing death is just the beginning of a well written book. Twists and turns, a detective with secrets of his own, make this a fine read.
Great fun read and well written. Winner winner chicken dinner!
Definitely different and very engaging. A mystery worth reading
This book was just so much fun! I love how the author made himself the protagonist. It felt like he was giving you a bit of a sneak peak into his life and as a fellow author geek, I really loved that. I definitely didn’t see the ending coming. If your looking for a good murder mystery. This is an excellent choice.