The Word Is Murder: The bestselling mystery from the author of Magpie Murders – you've never read a crime novel quite like this

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And it’s a seamless blend between the actual facts of his career and the events in this novel. Horowitz has skillfully created a near-seamless blend of the his own creation and recognizable television shows and novels. For example, while he writes this book, he is supposed to be working on a follow-up to THE HOUSE OF SILK. The Word Is Murder [1] is a 2017 mystery novel by British author Anthony Horowitz and the first novel in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series. The story focuses on solving the murder of a woman who was involved in a hit-and-run accident ten years previously. One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper – the wealthy mother of a famous actor – enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. Although still a work of fiction, “The Word Is Murder” is written in first person, and the narrator is Horowitz himself. He stays true to the facts about himself, detailing his work as a creator on the show “Foyle’s War” and his successful “Alex Rider” children’s book series. Horowitz takes the first person to the next level, explaining throughout the narration how he decided what details from this “real life” investigation to include and exclude in the novel while discussing how certain aspects of writing this story gave him difficulty like starting the writing process before even knowing if the detective, Hawthorne, would ever be able to solve the case. This adds another mystery to the novel: How much of what is written is real and how much is fake? The facts of Horowitz’s life are true, but the famous actor Damian Cowper, whose mother is murdered in the first chapter of the novel, is fictional. Yet again, Horowitz has stuffed one mystery inside another.

best recent crime novels – review roundup The best recent crime novels – review roundup

Café Mortel, an opportunity to discuss one’s mortality over tea and cake. ― Anthony Horowitz, The Word Is Murder Clash of Reality and Fiction in The Word is Murder 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. Living in central London now, he currently resides with his wife and two sons there as he continues to write to this day. Producing his television series ‘Foyles War’, he met his wife Jill Green in Hong-Kong in 1988, after which they had their two children. His two children now are said to help him with ideas providing new material and fresh insight for his many books to come. Writing Career 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. During the 1980’s Anthony Horowitz started creating work for film as well as television, as he begun to expand upon his output. Writing for children’s shows such as ‘Dramarama’ and ‘Robin of Sherwood’ he started to create a name for himself within the field. It was then later on that he wrote the screenplay for the 2006 film ‘Stormbreaker’, whilst he’s also set to write the new Tintin film coming out too. Winning a number of awards throughout the years, Horowitz is not without his fair share of critical acclaim either. Expanding upon the mediums and formats he writes within, such as comic-books as well, this looks set to continue in the years to come. Creating more work all the time, his appeal is growing both critically as well as commercially, as he gains more success.As fun as it might be to overlap truth and imagination, this element alone wouldn’t exactly make for a good novel, especially not a good murder mystery. Rest assured, Horowitz spent as much effort in crafting the mystery as he did in making his character dislike every one of Hawthorne’s bad habits.

The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (Daniel REVIEW: The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (Daniel

Such an interactive narrator is helpful at times in the mystery, as Horowitz gives vague clues that hint at the novel’s twist. For instance, Horowitz writes, “As for Chapter One, forget the bell and the Mont Blanc pen…[b]ut be assured that the rest of it, including a clue which would indicate, quite clearly, the identity of the killer, is spot on.” It is this narration that allows “The Word Is Murder” to be more than the average detective novel. What’s more, the detective in question does not fall into the usual character trope, although he possesses the uncanny ability to derive information from the simplest clues much like most detectives in such novels. Hawthorne is ex-police (due to a mysterious, years old incident that got him fired) and he is wholly unlikeable and a raging homophobe. Beyond these basic facts, Horowitz seems to know little else about Hawthorne, making the detective of the story a bit of a mystery himself.The twists, despite being numerous, are still spaced out well enough to give you some time to reflect and absorb what you’ve been reading. It might not be the most original or groundbreaking mystery I’ve ever read, but I would certainly classify highly among its kind. There is an additional mystery which, if I understand correctly, will be eventually developed upon over the course of the series: the darkness within Hawthorne himself. A perfect detective novel in a unique style complete with an excellent twist!" ( Life Has a Funny Way of Sneaking Up On You)

The Word Is Murder’: A Mystery that Blends Fiction and ‘The Word Is Murder’: A Mystery that Blends Fiction and

At first glance Alex Rider is a normal schoolboy who seems to be having a fairly straightforward uneventful upbringing. That is until one day as a teenager he finally realizes his true calling and that everything has been leading up to the moment where he’s to become a super-spy. After his uncle and adoptive parent, Ian Rider, mysteriously dies he’s led to discover more about what happened and the true nature of what he’s to become. Forced to attend a training program, he reluctantly goes to a special camp for spies where he learns more about what he’s to become. That’s when he realizes there’s more to things than initially meets the eye, as he discovers a plot set-up by the people he’s now entrusted with. Not knowing where to turn he has to decipher the clues left to him by his uncle and prevent a catastrophe from taking place. Will Alex be able to save the day and those around him, whilst saving himself in the process staying out of harm’s way? Can he become what he was always destined to be and fully realize his true potential as a secret-agent for the government? What will become of Alex Rider in his first mission as he goes head-to-head with none other than the ‘Stormbreaker’? Raven’s GateIt’s been two years since Injustice aired and Detective Daniel Hawthorne needs cash. Having gotten himself fired from his job at the Metropolitan police, Hawthorne decides to approach Anthony Horowitz. He’s investigating a bizarre and complex murder and he wants Anthony to write a book about it, a bestselling book of course, with a 50/50 split. Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. 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? A total joy. Anthony is a master entertainer, the genius twists and turns of his writing and plot keep me on the edge of my seat.' Rory Kinnear THE WORD IS MURDER is an Anthony Horowitz novel, starring himself as a Watson-figure to fictional detective Daniel Hawthorne, in a murder investigation that blends reality and fiction in a masterful way, while telling a solidly plotted mystery.

The Word is Murder Summary and Study Guide | SuperSummary

This is what reluctant author Anthony Horowitz tells ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne in an awkward encounter. The truth is that Anthony has other things on his mind.On its face, this blend of details about Horowitz’s life, work, and personality, with the creation of the fictional detective and murder is at risk of being unbearably self-centred. It’s a pleasant surprise that it is not. Horowitz does mention points of his career and projects that he has worked on as a means of entry to some parts of the story (and occasionally anecdotally), but it comes in the form of interesting tidbits, rather than bragging. There’s even a scene including a few famous directors that is quite hilarious. The next morning she is found dead, stabbed in the heart with an ornamental dagger that has only one set of finger prints on it. Anthony's. Read this book for: author self-insert, reality/fiction blend, UK mystery, amateur detective, consulting detective, unique format