The Word Is Murder
A Novel
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4.2 • 391 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
SHE PLANNED HER OWN FUNERAL. BUT DID SHE ARRANGE HER OWN MURDER?
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.
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.
Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home.
Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who’s as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz.
Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying but even so his latest case with its many twists and turns proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own.
A masterful and tricky mystery that springs many surprises, The Word is Murder is Anthony Horowitz at his very best.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Several years ago, renowned British writer Anthony Horowitz published the first new Sherlock Holmes novels sanctioned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate. The Word Is Murder is a delightfully post-modern follow-up, in which a contemporary super-sleuth looking for his own Watson chooses novelist Anthony Horowitz for the job. The whodunit is tightly crafted and challenging, but mostly we loved the book's witty structure, which immerses us in a mystery author’s writing process while still delivering a suspenseful adventure. Plus, Horowitz’s detective, Daniel Hawthorne, is as willful, frustrating, and oddly endearing as Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Voice actor Kinnear sounds playfully peevish and impatient when portraying the narrator of Horowitz's hugely entertaining whodunit, adding to the novel's sense of fun. Daniel Hawthorne, a respected former Metro policeman who has been hired to consult on a strange murder case, pressures popular novelist Anthony Horowitz (a fictionalized version of the author himself) to write a book about him and his investigation. Diana Cowper, a well-to-do widow, has been strangled in her London residence, and Hawthorne and Horowitz's investigation leads them to the scene of a long-ago tragedy at a seaside resort in Kent and another murder. Horowitz isn't the only "real" person to appear in the story; directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson appear and, along with an assortment of colorful suspects, are smoothly enacted by Kinnear. Horowitz's mystery is as cleverly constructed as the classic whodunits of the golden age, populated by fascinating characters and peppered with fair-play clues. Kinnear's faultless delivery is completely in tune with the author's ability to mix murder and mirth. A Harper hardcover.
Customer Reviews
The Word Is…
This is a great read. The characters are authentic, the story, intriguing and the plot, devised with the fine threads of deception, marvelous. Total winner!
Fantastic
This is the first book I read by this author and I really loved it . It was entertaining from the beginning and had me wanting to keep turning the page to find out more . I found the concept so very interesting by the author inputting himself into the book. I loved it, all of it !
Absolutely fantastic
I loved it! As an avid reader of fiction, spy thrillers and mysteries, this book was all of that and more. Charming, so well written and a pleasure to read. Bravo!!