The Word is Murder, Anthony Horowitz (2018)
The Word is Murder, Anthony Horowitz (2018). There’s something kind of self-satisfied about Anthony Horowitz that would be terribly off-putting in a writer of serious fiction but somehow works just fine for a maker of classical murder mysteries. All of the Horowitz mysteries I’ve read seem just a little bit tongue in cheek, winking at the reader about the cleverness of the plot, but you go along for the fun and the earnest emulation of Golden Age detective fiction.
Horowitz, who not only writes mysteries but TV dramas like Foyle’s War, goes one level more meta with the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, of which this is the first installment: putting himself into the story, as a kind of Watson sidekick to the surly, charisma-challenged, borderline-autism-spectrum sleuth Daniel Hawthorne. And he seems to be sending up his own writerly persona here, as script meetings with Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg and tussles with his agent punctuate the doings of the main plot; the Horowitz of the novel feels like a self-parody, his obtuseness exaggerated to highlight Hawthorne’s brilliance, but behind it one still feels the real Horowitz all the while, unfeignedly enjoying his own cleverness (and why shouldn’t he?)
The mystery in The Word is Murder takes the reader on a rapid tour of greater London (plus the seaside resort of Deal) as fictional Horowitz tries to keep up, both with Hawthorne’s deductive ingenuity and his dysfunctional personality. The game is set afoot in classic fashion: a well-off woman of sixty walks into a funeral parlor to plan her own funeral - and later that afternoon is murdered in her home. At several points false solutions present themselves both to the reader and the fictional Horowitz, only to be vaporized by some new angle or development. The book, like other Horowitz mysteries, very much engages the reader-as-guesser and plays scrupulously fair with clues and so on. Close reading and attention to detail and nuance is rewarded in this type of mystery - as it should be! Part of what’s great about Horowitz, and what makes that self-satisfied air not only tolerable but actually enjoyable, is its loving engagement with the classic Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr tradition, treating it with immense respect while also enjoying the hell out of it. Finished this in three days and looking forward to more in the series. (Read early August 2024)