The Word Is Murder was the first true-crime book that acclaimed author Anthony Horowitz wrote, documenting the investigation by Daniel Hawthorne into the murder of a woman who had organised her own funeral hours before her death. Now filming has started on the film of the book. While Horowitz isn’t writing the script, he and Hawthorne have been invited to visit the set – and almost straight away, it seems that something is very wrong.
It’s not long before Hawthorne is called back to the set, because the actor playing him, someone who has managed to annoy everyone on and off set, has been found stabbed in his trailer. But when everyone has a motive and opportunity, can Hawthorne track down the man the killed “Hawthorne”?
Yes, it all sounds a bit meta, doesn’t it? But if you’ve read the series before, you know that Horowitz has a wonderful talent to make this set-up, of writing about a fictional version of himself writing about murders that he ends up involved in, work without it seeming weird. Not really sure how he does it – somehow I feel that it shouldn’t work, but it really does.
And, of course, it helps that this is a first-rate murder mystery. Nicely distinct characters, interesting motives, a suitably unpleasant victim and more clues than you can shake a stick at. And I still was looking in the wrong direction when the killer was revealed – I was kicking myself when the “solution” was revealed, thinking how clever it was, when I was hit with the real solution. And not only did it make perfect sense, but all the clues were there and I remembered seeing most of them – just not realising what I was reading. It’s not many authors who can do that – Agatha something-or-other managed it but Horowitz is one of the modern masters of the art.
We also get a little more development into Hawthorne’s back story – I gather Horowitz has a plan for this series – and I’m really looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.
But… no, I’ve nothing bad to say at all, bar the title – it’s a film, not an episode of a series. This is a wonderful read, the sort of thing that should be winning awards for Best Mystery Novel Of The Year. And while it’s too late for this year’s CWA Whodunnit Dagger, I think there’s every chance it’ll be in the running for a certain Grand Puzzly at the end of the year…
A Deadly Episode is out on Thursday 23rd April in hardback and ebook from Penguin. Many thanks for the review e-copy.
Previously In The Series:
In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel 