Just after eleven o'clock on a bright spring morning, the sort of day when the sunshine is almost white and promises a warmth that it doesn't quite deliver, Diana Cowper crossed the Fulham Road and went into a funeral parlour.
These are the opening words to The Word is Murder, Anthony Horowitz's new mystery novel, only recently published in the United States. Unlike his previous mysteries, this one is not an imitation of Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie, so it was interesting to read something in a more personal voice.
The main character in this book is an author, who is approached by a former detective/current consultant to write a book about his current murder case, which he's confident he'll solve. Overall, I enjoyed the concept - and execution - of a narrative voice from a professional writer, as well as the dynamic between the narrator and Hawthorne. The detective Hawthorne is abrasive and manipulative, and very reluctant to share details about his personal life. You can easily pick out the parts of his personality that were inspired by other famous detectives, and when you've picked all of that out, there's not a lot left that's particularly interesting or original. I was very aware that he was a character in a book, rather than real a person someone might encounter in daily life. And this was rather peculiar, as the rest of the characters were quickly illustrated with much more depth.
The mystery in The Word is Murder is an interesting and engaging one, with plenty of misdirection and red herrings to keep the reader guessing. However, as a puzzle, it's solvable. Almost all of the clues are laid out for the reader, and I didn't feel cheated at the end-- although I didn't guess the culprit correctly, I knew I'd been given the tools to do so. Throughout the book, I felt one step ahead of the narrator, but one step behind Hawthorne, who did a significant amount of sleuthing off-page. The mystery-crafting was very clever and the motivations of the culprit were believable. Unfortunately, the reveal of the culprit was the novel's weakest point.
[There are spoilers in the following paragraph.]
There's a point in the final confrontation where the narrator realizes he's been drugged. From that point, we know exactly how the end of the book will play out. The culprit will over-explain to the incapacitated narrator everything that happened. There will be implications that the narrator will die, but we all know he won't. The partner will arrive at what is seemingly the last second to save the day. It's all exhaustingly predictable, and the author did nothing to subvert our expectations in the final moments of the mystery. It felt as though suddenly I had switched to a YA novel, and it was a disappointing ending to an otherwise enjoyable book.
[Spoilers end here.]
The writing in this book is not as rhythmic or prose-like as Magpie Murders. There aren't many instances of immersion-breaking syntax, and the pace was very natural and easy to read, but it didn't make as strong an impression as Magpie Murders. The narration was repetitious at times, but was very successful in keeping my attention - even when the narrator rambled about producer meetings for a film script, I wasn't bored.
Ultimately, though I liked Magpie Murders better, I would still highly recommend The Word is Murder, and I'm interested in seeing character development in another book. The Word is Murder was an engaging puzzle to solve, and an entertaining book to read. The plot is cleverly constructed and delivered to the reader, and I'm absolutely looking forward to the next book by Anthony Horowitz, though I'm hoping for a reveal as satisfying as the build-up to it.
Sherlock Holmes persists as one of the most frequently adapted fictional characters. But why? And what does each medium bring to the original stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?