The Word Is Murder

 The Word Is Murder (2017) by Anthony Horowitz

The wealthy Diane Cowper enters the Cornwallis funeral parlor one fine spring morning and makes her own final arrangements. Just six hours later, she's found strangled to death with curtain cord from her own front windows. There are no clues and, seemingly, no suspects. Everyone loved her. And when the Yard is stumped, they call in Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant former member of their team who exited the force under a cloud. Hawthorne decides that, like his brilliant predecessor Sherlock Holmes, he needs a Watson to follow him around, admire his deductions, and write them up in a nice, best-selling book. He chooses our narrator (and real-life author) Anthony Horowitz. 

Horowitz isn't particularly taken with Hawthorne and initially turns him down. But he finds himself drawn into the investigation anyway and, once he visits Diane Cowper's home and begins to feel like he knows her, he's hooked. He and Hawthorne have a few run-ins during the course of the story, but he can't walk away and not know what happens. They soon find that the victim wasn't quite the universally beloved woman they were led to believe (is anyone ever, really?). She was responsible for the death of one child and the devastating injuries of his brother. Has the family finally sought revenge? There was also rumored to be an argument with the theater board--leading to her resignation. Her famous, movie star son seems more interested in the effect on him and his career than the fact that she's been murdered and her daughter-in-law seems to have actively disliked her. And who was the man who left the foot mark on her carpet--the only real clue at the scene? When a second murder follows Diane's and the home of the judge involved in the car accident case (Diane walked free with barely a slap on the wrist), it begins to look like a case of revenge after all--but are there other reasons for revenge that have yet to come to the surface? And will that revenge reach out for one of our heroes?

An interesting take on the Holmes/Watson detective team. Hawthorne, initially, is far more unlikeable than Holmes and Horowitz is a far more reluctant sidekick. Over the course of the investigation there are signs that the two might become a close team, but there's still a ways to go. It took me a while to warm up to either character, but the mystery is definitely a good, twisty one and I absolutely missed the clue in the first chapter (that Horowitz goes out of his way to tell us is there). He does a good job with the red herrings and even though (as he tells us) there isn't quite the jeopardy in the confrontation scene as there could be (obviously since he's narrating the thing, we know Horowitz isn't going to die...) it is still an effective meeting. 

As much as I enjoyed his Magpie and Moonflower Murders, I believe I'm going to like this series better. We'll see what I think once I get to the next in the series. ★★★★

First line: 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, Diane Cowper crossed the Fulham Road and went into a funeral parlour.

Last line: By the time I reached the other side of the river, I knew exactly what I was going to do.
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Deaths = 7 (one strangled, two natural, one car accident; three stabbed)