I have bought several paperbacks lately and I can’t quite remember where I picked up this one. I think it caught my eye because I had just written an article about ‘cosy crime.’ Was Anthony Horowitz jumping on the bandwagon I wondered.
I associated this writer with children’s books, specifically aimed at boys, the most popular and successful series being ‘Alex Rider.’ They are pure excitement and adventure and remind me of the books by Willard Price that my elder son use to consume with great enjoyment several decades ago.
Anyway, I don’t think I knew much about books for adults written by Horowitz and here was my chance to explore further. ‘A line to kill’ is a great read and I think highly original. The author puts himself into the story, as himself, and then invents the other characters and of course the plot. It is an intriguing device and at times very humorous. The scene is a literary festival in the Channel Island of Alderney. In the story Horowitz has been working with a private investigator, Daniel Hawthorne, writing a book together, which they have now been asked to talk about. Inevitably there is a murder and there are many secrets to be unravelled in the back stories of the people involved.
The book is very well written, a true modern take on the classic thriller and delightfully there are more! I shall investigate further. It was fun…as are the titles of the books, all with a literary slant: ‘The Word is Murder’ and ‘ The Sentence is Death.’