A Line to Kill: a locked room mystery from the Sunday Times bestselling author (Hawthorne and Horowitz, 3)

Product Information

Second in the military crime series featuring Special Agents Scott Brodie and Magnolia "Maggie" Taylor, after The Deserter (2019). The clearer focus: the previous two novels – if I remember rightly – have both twisted towards the thriller genre by the conclusion as Horowitz blunders into the path of dangerous people and is nearly killed. This novel kept itself within detective conventions more.

The visiting authors - including a blind medium, a French performance poet and a celebrity chef - seem to be harbouring any number of unpleasant secrets. I’ve really enjoyed Horowitz’ crime capers in the past as he has played with the form: the Susan Ryeland series ( Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders) which interpose Atticus Pund’s fiction-within-a-fiction detective story within Ryeland’s own investigations; and the Hawthorne and Horowitz Mysteries ( The Word is Murderand The Sentence is Death) where our author guest stars as himself tagging along with the erstwhile Detective Daniel Hawthorne. Let’s be honest, these are not series which are going to win literary prizes, but they are well crafted and fun who-dunnits which also offer a sneak into the literary and publishing world.Arriving on Alderney, Hawthorne and Horowitz soon meet the festival’s other guests—an eccentric gathering that includes a bestselling 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.

Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and the writer Anthony Horowitz have been invited to a literary festival on the island of Alderney to talk about their new book . . . A Line to Kill,” Anthony Horowitz’s third murder mystery pairing a stand-in for himself (a veteran English novelist and screenwriter) with ex-police detective Daniel Hawthorne, takes place mostly at a literary festival on tiny Alderney, one of the Channel Islands. “There’s never been a murder on Alderney,” more than one resident tells Hawthorne and Horowitz. But that’s about to change. Except for the atrocities of World War II, there hasn’t been a murder on the Channel Island of Alderney from time immemorial. The staging of the Alderney Lit Fest brings that streak to a decided end. The setting on the island of Alderney – although it could, perhaps, have been a little more intense, a little more claustrophobic…. It is undeniably beautiful and picturesque – and for the purposes of this novel unspoiled by almost any crime having never had a murder case.

The series is good for 10 books, Horowitz says. “At the end of the tenth book, we find out what makes Hawthorne such a difficult and contrary human being. We find out what happened to him as a boy that changed his life.”

The beginning of the novel, when Bond is captured and Mr Big’s henchman, Teehee, breaks Bond’s finger, makes me sweat when I read it. There are, however, parts of the book which I would not write myself, which we would feel uncomfortable reading.” Horowitz says he sees no need to prune out the uncomfortable bits from the legacy sequel as it is not the way he thinks. Many thanks to Anthony Horowitz and Penguin Books for the chance to read this ARC, courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.Very soon they discover that not all is as it should be. Alderney is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour. The literary festival is described in loving detail in the book. “I love literary festivals. They are the one thing I have missed the most during the time of COVID-19. There is something wonderful about people coming together for the love of reading and books. The Jaipur Literature Festival is one of my favourites. I was amazed that thousands of people come to this city out of love for literature and books. There is something wonderfully civilised about it. In a world where there is so much discord, concern, worry and fear, and where politics seem to be out of control, it is heartening that there are people who want to come together to talk about stories. The sleuth and the scribbler are there to promote the first of their three proposed Inspector Hawthorne novels. Horowitz sums up the rest of the event’s participants: “an unhealthy chef, a blind psychic, a war historian, a children’s author, a French performance poet. . . . Not quite the magnificent seven.” Then there’s Charles le Mesurier, the online-gaming entrepreneur bankrolling the event, a wealthy and boorish figure who patronizes or taunts most of the men he meets and, though married, puts the moves on every pretty woman. Writing is never difficult for me. James Bond is perhaps the biggest challenge to write because I’m working in the shadow of Ian Fleming and there is so much research to do to get it right and to get the correct tone of voice. I find the process of writing one of immersion and absorption.”