The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

Title: The Word is Murder
Author: Anthony Horowitz
Publication: HarperCollins, audio, originally published in 2017
Narrator: Rory Kinnear
Genre: Mystery
Setting: London

Description: Diana Cowper, a prosperous London resident, stops at a funeral parlor to make arrangements for her eventual funeral – then is murdered later that day. The police assume it was a burglary but they hire an investigator, perhaps because Diana’s son is a famous actor. The investigator is Daniel Hawthorne, a formerly disgraced police detective who thinks highly of himself and suggests Anthony Horowitz himself write a mystery series about him, using this case as inspiration for the first book. Anthony is irritated by the presumption but intrigued, and is unwillingly impressed by Hawthorne’s unerring deduction. But he wants to play a role in solving the crime; if he can do it without jeopardizing the whole case!

My Impression: As in Magpie Murders, currently being shown on Masterpiece in the US, this is a story within a story: the mystery of Diana Cowper’s death, as described in the ghostwritten book Horowitz writes, but also the story of this quirky partnership between two men with little in common:

But for once, I was on my home ground and I was determined. ‘The only way this is going to work is if you allow me into your life,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to know about you.’

‘Nobody’s interested in me.’

‘If that were true, I wouldn’t be here. If it’s true, the book won’t sell.’ I watched as Hawthorne lit another cigarette. For the first time in thirty years, I was tempted to ask for one myself. ‘Listen to me,’ I went on, carefully. ‘They’re not called murder victim stories. They’re not called criminal stories. They’re called detective stories. There’s a reason for that. I’m taking a big risk here. If you solve this crime right now, I won’t have anything to write about. Worse than that, if you don’t solve it at all, it’ll be a complete waste of time. So getting to know you matters.’

Diana’s death so soon after planning her funeral cannot be a coincidence but, if it was murder, there is a wide range of suspects, and Horowitz - the screenwriter of Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War, as well as being the author of the Alex Rider series and adult mysteries – pokes fun at himself for falling for nearly every red herring (as does the reader). The mystery is full of surprises and their partnership is amusing, although one can see why Horowitz finds Hawthorne so irritating. One of my favorite bits was when Horowitz is invited to a meeting with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson to discuss a movie script. To his horror, Hawthorne crashes the meeting, reminding him they need to attend Diana’s funeral, destroying his dreams of working with Spielberg.

I listened to the audiobook which was extremely well-narrated. The Word is Murder is my twentieth book for Carol's 2022 Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge. It’s my favorite of his books so far and there are three more in this series to look forward to.

Source: Library