{"id":4658,"date":"2022-11-09T05:36:19","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T13:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=4658"},"modified":"2022-11-09T05:36:19","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T13:36:19","slug":"anthony-horowitz-the-twist-of-a-knife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/anthony-horowitz-the-twist-of-a-knife\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Horowitz: The Twist of a Knife"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Anthony Horowitz, one of the finest practitioners of the traditional detective novel, brings us a new installment in his series where Anthony Horowitz himself is the detective.\u00a0 Or rather, he\u2019s the writer who solves crimes with an actual detective named Hawthorne, and then writes books about their investigations.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very meta concept and it only took me a minute to adjust to it.\u00a0 In this alternate world where Horowitz the author is Horowitz the character, he\u2019s written a play.<\/p>\n

The play is being produced, starting out in smaller cities and at last \u2013 moving to London.\u00a0 As the book opens, Anthony has told Hawthorne he doesn\u2019t plan to write any more books; and he\u2019s very much looking forward to opening night of his play.\u00a0 It\u2019s a small cast and all of them head out to celebrate afterwards at a party thrown by the producer, and the cast and Anthony end up back at the theater\u2019s green room waiting on reviews.\u00a0 One comes in early, and it\u2019s a nasty one.\u00a0 The cast trickles out, in shock.<\/p>\n

The next morning, the critic who wrote the review, Harriet Throsby, is found stabbed to death with one of the stage daggers the producer had handed out to Anthony and the cast members.\u00a0 This very much narrows the suspect pool, but the dagger used to kill the woman turns out to be Anthony\u2019s and he\u2019s very quickly arrested.\u00a0 He\u2019s released after a 24 hour hold and turns to Hawthorne for help.<\/p>\n

What follows could not be more golden age, as Anthony and Hawthorne interview every suspect, i.e., the cast.\u00a0 While this was well done, it was expected. But then, as Horowitz always manages to do, he provides a compelling twist about three quarters of the way through the novel which makes it impossible to stop reading.<\/p>\n

The character of Harriet is also at the center of the mystery.\u00a0 She was incredibly unpleasant \u2013 even her husband and daughter didn\u2019t like her \u2013 and the more Anthony and Hawthorne dig, the more they discover about her.\u00a0 They are working on a deadline as the police have found more evidence against Anthony and he is basically on the lam.\u00a0 Luckily, Hawthorne is an excellent detective and is able to solve the case.<\/p>\n

That outcome was never really in doubt, but the clever investigation and unpeeling of the characters, the look at London theaters, and the feel of London itself make this a memorable read.\u00a0 Probably the London bit is more quotidian for Horowitz, who lives there, but for this armchair traveler, it was a delight, as was this wonderful book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony Horowitz, one of the finest practitioners of the traditional detective novel, brings us a new installment in his series where Anthony Horowitz himself is the detective.\u00a0 Or rather, he\u2019s the writer who solves crimes with an actual detective named Hawthorne, and then writes books about their investigations.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very meta concept and it … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[264,388,990,992,993,991,452],"class_list":["post-4658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-anthony-horowitz","tag-golden-age-detection","tag-harper","tag-hawthorne","tag-london-theater","tag-the-twist-of-a-knife","tag-traditional-detective"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4660,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4658\/revisions\/4660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}