The Word Is Murder (A Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery)

Product Information

Told from Horowitz’s first -person perspective, the reader is schooled about the life of an author, while he takes every available opportunity to promote himself and his work along the way. It is a theme that emerges in the new novel. The Word Is Murder is first in a series about Hawthorne, an ex-cop turned gumshoe who seems to be straight out of central casting: ageing loner, problems with authority, smoker, secretive, divorced. But, as the novel progresses, the carapace is demolished and, Horowitz promises, the next eight or nine books (he is undecided) will provide surprising revelations. First published on the 4th of September, 2000, in the UK, this bestselling book was set to propel Anthony Horowitz’s profile forwards. Not only getting a film deal out of it, he’s also had a video-game and graphic-novel come from it as well over the following years. Setting up the ‘Alex Rider’ series, it creates the overall tone and feel for the books, whilst also establishing many of the main characters. Obviously, I enjoyed this book immensely! It’s one of the best murder mysteries I’ve read since…. Well, perhaps since ‘Magpie Murders”- another plug for Horowitz- as if he needs any promotional help from me. Anthony Horowitz, a.k.a. Tony, the narrator, a ghostwriter for Hawthorne based on the author himself

As the novel opens, wealthy middle-aged Londoner Diana Cowper goes to an undertaker to plan her funeral, so - when the time comes - it will go off exactly as she wants.....with her chosen hymns and music. The funeral will occur much sooner than expected, though, because Diana is strangled in her apartment a few hours later. But nonetheless, I had wealthy parents who sent me to a particularly horrible boarding school in North London. Talk to many men in this country - my country - of this sort of experience - their education between the age of 8 and 13, and you'll find the same stories of abuse - physical, mental, sexual - all these things. Though a lot of those, fortunately, never came my way. But - and what saved me was, aged about 10, first discovering the library and books, and realizing that a book is a door that can open and take you into a fantastic different world. And then, finally, it was here that I had a facility for telling stories. At that age - same age - 10, I was telling stories to the other children in the dormitory. We used to sleep, each of us in the same room - all 10 of us, whatever. And telling stories to a lot of frightened kids helped them escape, too. 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.

My writing has saved me,” he says. “Simple as that.” He looks sheepish, before breaking into a smile. “When I was 10, and inadequate in many ways, writing was a lifeline. Now I have my life pretty much sorted out. In a world where everything seems to be uncertain, writing is the only certainty I have.” And it was then that I discovered that despite what my teachers had told me, which was that I was fundamentally useless, that I did have a talent. I had a skill. And I determined at that age that I would pursue it all my life, and that is what I've always done. Note--I had scored a cheap trade edition at Half Price Books. And it'll be passed on. Not worthy of my library space. readers down the same path his first-person narrator stumbles down, the real killer steps into the scene, and Hawthorne must save the author from an unlikely murderer.Courtesy of HarperCollins This book was yet another great novel that slid down my hopeless TBR list and sat collecting virtual dust in my ‘currently reading’ folder for well over a year. The upside to that is that now I don’t have to wait for the second book to come out. It’s already on my Kindle- hopefully it won’t take me another two years to get around to reading it. 😁

HOROWITZ: It was certainly very interesting. I mean, when I was approached by one of my editors to do a new series of murder mysteries, and I hope this is the first of many, I was looking for a way to sort of turn the whole formula - the format upside down. And by putting myself into the book, I suddenly realized that everything I wrote would be different, that my view of the landscape would be different, that I would have no knowledge of what was happening, when, of course, normally, the author knows everything. I highly recommend this book for those who are looking for a different way of both writing and telling a story that was hard to put down. Clever and witty and one in which I do hope to see "Tony" and Daniel meet up once again and get that Hawthorne book written. The Word Is Murder [1] is a 2017 mystery novel by British author Anthony Horowitz and the first novel in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series. The story focuses on solving the murder of a woman who was involved in a hit-and-run accident ten years previously. At first glance Alex Rider is a normal schoolboy who seems to be having a fairly straightforward uneventful upbringing. That is until one day as a teenager he finally realizes his true calling and that everything has been leading up to the moment where he’s to become a super-spy. After his uncle and adoptive parent, Ian Rider, mysteriously dies he’s led to discover more about what happened and the true nature of what he’s to become. Forced to attend a training program, he reluctantly goes to a special camp for spies where he learns more about what he’s to become. That’s when he realizes there’s more to things than initially meets the eye, as he discovers a plot set-up by the people he’s now entrusted with. Not knowing where to turn he has to decipher the clues left to him by his uncle and prevent a catastrophe from taking place. Will Alex be able to save the day and those around him, whilst saving himself in the process staying out of harm’s way? Can he become what he was always destined to be and fully realize his true potential as a secret-agent for the government? What will become of Alex Rider in his first mission as he goes head-to-head with none other than the ‘Stormbreaker’? Raven’s Gate This was my third adult novel penned by the talented Anthony Horowitz. They have all been great diversions paired with excellent writing. Both Magpie Murders and The House of Silk are on my favorites list. This one comes very close to both, but those wowed me just a wee bit more. I would not hesitate to recommend any of the three if you are a mystery lover! I understand there is a second in the series coming out in November, and I can’t wait to grab it and follow more of Hawthorne and Horowitz’s escapades in that one. I hope we can unravel some more of Hawthorne’s secrets next!As a creator of compelling crime fiction, Horowitz is what is known as a civilian, an outsider who relies on imagination and research. He brings no special expertise derived from spending time as a homicide detective (Joseph Wambaugh), a criminal attorney (Linda Fairstein), a mental health practitioner (Jonathan Kellerman), or even a cop reporter (Michael Connelly). This was such a great read. I absolutely loved that the author inserted himself into the story and quite honestly had to ask myself could this be real? The interplay of the characters was a draw as well as the ending which was quite threatening to our author, or was it? This is an ingenious whodunit, which is perfect, all on its own, but Horowitz’s narrative and unabashed owning of his healthy ego gives the story a certain charm amid the darker themes. Enter: Diana Cowper, a sixtyish Londoner, who begins our story with an unusual event that should really be termed as an ending. Diana enters into a neighboring funeral home to plan her own funeral. Before her signature is barely dry on the funeral forms, Diana enters once more into her London home. And the word is murder spelled out brutally for Diana.

A perfect detective novel in a unique style complete with an excellent twist!" ( Life Has a Funny Way of Sneaking Up On You)

Six hours after widowed London socialite Diana Cowper calls on mortician Robert Cornwallis to make arrangements for her own funeral, she’s suddenly in need of them after getting strangled in her home. The Met calls on murder specialist Daniel Hawthorne, an ex-DI bounced off the force for reasons he’d rather not talk about, and he calls on the narrator (“nobody ever calls me Tony”), a writer in between projects whose agent expects him to be working on The House of Silk, a Holmes-ian pastiche which Horowitz happens to have published in real life. Anthony’s agreement with Hawthorne to collaborate on a true-crime account of the case is guaranteed to blindside his agent (in a bad way) and most readers (in entrancingly good ways). Diana Cowper, it turns out, is not only the mother of movie star Damian Cowper, but someone who had her own brush with fame 10 years ago when she accidentally ran over a pair of 8-year-old twins, killing Timothy Godwin and leaving Jeremy Godwin forever brain-damaged. A text message Diana sent Damian moments before her death—“I have seen the boy who was lacerated and I’m afraid”—implicates both Jeremy, who couldn’t possibly have killed her, and the twins’ estranged parents, Alan and Judith Godwin, who certainly could have. But which of them, or which other imaginable suspect, would have sneaked a totally unpredictable surprise into her coffin and then rushed out to commit another murder? Teen spy … Stormbreaker, the film version of Horowitz’s Alex Rider series. Photograph: c.MGM/Everett/Rex Features HOROWITZ: Well, my mother spent an awful lot of time looking for this money. And I remember that she found my father's notebooks full of code words and strange hieroglyphics and symbols and this and that and names of things, and went to Switzerland many, many times trying to find it because she was being pursued by a large number of companies to whom my father had owed money. So it was a very traumatic time for her. But that's one mystery and one investigation that has never touched me. I didn't want to know anything about it at the time. I was too traumatized by the events anyway. 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. HOROWITZ: I had to be very careful, actually, to make sure that I was not the center of attention in this book. I am Watson, not Holmes. I'm merely the narrator, and it is Hawthorne who is the hero. And he, I'm afraid, definitely gets the best lines.