The third book in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series (it's meta - you can find out more about all of that at reviews of THE WORD IS MURDER and THE SENTENCE IS DEATH), sees Horowitz convinced (slightly) that he's got the upperhand on his colleague, and subject of the books he's currently writing, Daniel Hawthorne. They are guests at a literary festival, and if there's one thing that Anthony Horowitz knows a lot more about than Hawthorne, it's literary festivals.
Set on the remote and picturesque island of Alderney, off the south coast of England, the literary festival, of course, turns into a murder investigation, and despite Horowitz's best efforts to stay ahead of Hawthorne just this once, the investigation into a murder might have a series of literary guests as potential suspects, but a murderer is a murderer and a murder is a murder, and Hawthorne's astute eye and ear feed information into a brain that understands human nature a lot faster than Horowitz can ever hope to achieve.
Self-deprecating and drily funny in places, these two are the most unlikely of detecting companions, and Horowitz is not afraid to make out he's the most pedantic and uptight of the two, a bumbling conclusion drawer at best, whilst his literary creation, Hawthorne is mostly uncommunicative, incredibly observant, and always somewhat startled to realise that Horowitz isn't always on the same page, let alone the same book. In this case, it's the murder of a local millionaire, and the complications of the location of a potential electricity feeder project that spill over into the literary festival - with a series of guests that don't quite seem to live up to the exalted level of Horowitz (or at least not so to his mind).
This whole series is definitely one that is best served from reading / listening to in order. I've had the pleasure of tackling them in the audio version, read by Horowitz, and a) it made the whole scenario make sense (it's a bit on the tricky side); and b) it somehow made the differences in personality, and the way that the "writer" is observing the "character" seem more real. It also helps that the squabbling and irritation are always described in an impeccable, and seemingly unflappable English accent - for some reason it makes it even funnier :)
A Line to Kill
When ex-detective inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, are invited to an exclusive literary festival on Alderney, an idyllic island off the south coast of England, they don’t expect to find themselves in the middle of murder investigation - or to be trapped with a cold-blooded killer in a remote place with a murky, haunted past.
Arriving on Alderney, Hawthorne and Horowitz soon meet the festival’s other guests - an eccentric gathering that includes a best-selling children’s author, a French poet, a TV chef turned cookbook author, a blind psychic, and a war historian - along with a group of ornery locals embroiled in an escalating feud over a disruptive power line.
When a local grandee is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Hawthorne and Horowitz become embroiled in the case. The island is locked down, no one is allowed on or off, and it soon becomes horribly clear that a murderer lurks in their midst. But who?
Both a brilliant satire on the world of books and writers and an immensely enjoyable locked-room mystery, this audiobook is a triumph - a riddle of a story full of brilliant misdirection, beautifully set-out clues, and diabolically clever denouements.
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