THE WORD IS MURDER and

THE SENTENCE IS DEATH

by

Anthony Horowitz

    I became acquainted with Anthony Horowitz’s work when my kids were younger and read Alex Rider, The Power of Five, and Diamond Brothers. I recently discovered Horowitz’s “adult” classic mysteries and have become obsessed with his work. This new obsession began with The Word Is Murder.

    In The Word Is Murder, a wealthy woman walks into a funeral home and plans her own funeral. Later that same day, that woman is murdered. Former Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne, currently working as a private detective, is brought on by the police as a consultant to solve the puzzling murder. In the past, Hawthorne had consulted on a television show written by Anthony Horowitz. He now approaches Horowitz and offers him a deal: Hawthorne will solve this bizarre case, Horowitz will write a book about Hawthorne solving the case, and they will split the proceeds fifty-fifty. Horowitz had just finished writing his first Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk, and was busy, but the case – and the unusual Hawthorne – intrigues him. So, Horowitz agrees and becomes Hawthorne’s “Watson.”

    When I first heard about this book, I was told that Horowitz put himself in the book. I presumed that he mentioned himself somehow, akin to one of Hitchcock’s cameo appearances in his movies. But I was so very wrong. Horowitz is a full blown, and fully functioning, character, just like Hawthorne, albeit a very different sort of character. The manner in which Horowitz has “inserted himself into the investigation” is so very clever.

    I recently read some comments about a timing error in The Word Is Murder. I am usually very attuned to this sort of discrepancy in a book – they usually are glaring to me, and I find it very disturbing that the editor did not catch and remedy the error – but I did not notice this one. I was preoccupied by the cleverness of the plot and by trying to sort through which parts of the plot are factual and which are fictionalized. Despite any timeline discrepancies, I absolutely loved this book and was very excited to learn of its sequel.

    In The Sentence Is Death (Hawthorne #2), the sequel to The Word Is Murder, a well-known, teetotaling, divorce lawyer was killed at home with a very expensive bottle of wine. Hawthorne and Horowitz again team up when the police hire Hawthorne to help them solve this particularly baffling murder. The plot in this second Hawthorne book is similarly complex and clever. And, both books are well written, engaging, and replete with Horowitzian wit.

    After completing these two books, I read The House of Silk, Horowitz’s Sherlock Holmes novel referenced in The Word Is Murder, and followed that with the sequel, Moriarty. I also read Horowitz’s James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, and his Magpie Murders, a classic mystery involving detective Atticus Pund and editor Susan Ryeland. I have not yet read Horowitz’s second James Bond novel, Forever and A Day, or his second Susan Ryeland mystery, Moonflower Murders, but I cannot wait to do so.

    I loved each of the Horowitz books that I have read and highly recommend them all.

Nonetheless, my favorites are the two Hawthorne books reviewed here, The Word Is Murder and The Sentence Is Death.

    I am clearly becoming an ardent devotee of Anthony Horowitz’s work. I was going to say

that I am becoming an aficionado of Horowitz’s work, but that sounds a tad pretentious. Quite

simply, I am going a bit gaga over this man of mystery. Horowitz is a true master of the classic mystery genre.