Diana Cowper goes to the funeral home one morning to plan her own funeral. Later the same day she is murdered in her home. Coincidence? I think not. Daniel Hawthorne has been called in to help the police investigate the crime. He's an excentric ex-detective, who left the police under mysterious circumstances.
Daniel needs money and decides to hire an author to write about his life and this case. He asks Anthony Horowitz, and the book you are reading is the result of this collaboration.
Hawthorne is Sherlock Holmes, Horowitz is Watson, and it plays very well. Hawthorne is secretive and unconventional. Horowitz is frustrated but intrigued. The clues in the investigation are doled out steadily, so it is easy to keep turning the pages. There are lots of real-life references to Horowitz's books and contemporaries. I kept going to look up what and who was real, and who wasn't. Perhaps the mystery will be solved by some readers, but I was in the dark and very much enjoyed the resolution.
I don't pay too much attention to the details of a book blurb (don't want to know too much ahead of time). I had read House of Silk and thought this was another Sherlock Holmes adventure written by Horowitz. It isn't, but I wasn't at all disappointed.
Fans of a Sherlock Holmes type mystery will enjoy The Word is Murder.
Published by Harper, June 5, 2018
eARC obtained from Edelweiss
400 pages
Rating: 4.5/5
What a fun premise to put oneself into the storyline! This sounds like a good one.
ReplyDeleteVery clever and I'm glad it worked well in the book. I also read and enjoyed "The House of Silk" and wanted to pick this one up.
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting! I've heard good things about Horowitz although I've never read anything by him.
ReplyDelete