Book Review: The Twist of a Knife, Anthony Horowitz

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Another thoroughly enjoyable criminal romp for Anthony Horowitz and the enigmatic Daniel Hawthorne, uncovering the murderer of a vicious theatre critic before Horowitz is re-arrested for the crime.

The fourth installment of Horowitz and Hawthorne contains all the elements we’ve come to expect: Horowitz incorporates into a fictionalised account of his literary life a murder; Horowitz continues to play Watson to Hawthorne’s Holmes and bumbles about missing the important clues whilst fixating on the red herrings, It is fun, light-hearted, clever and thoroughly enjoyable.

On this outing, Horowitz focusses on his dramatic writing: Mindgame, a play he wrote, is produced in London and we witness his anxious attendance at the opening night, followed by the after-show party. Harriet Throsby, a renowned and vitriolic critic attends both and her review is scathing when, somewhat inebriated, one of the actors finds it on their phone and reads it to the rest of the cast. Next morning, Horowitz is awoken by police knocking on his door to arrest him for her murder: his dagger, his fingerprints, his DNA on a hair…

All seems rather damning and, after a night in a prison cell, Horowitz is sprung by Hawthorne and has perhaps 48 hours to prove his innocence until the police return him to custody. A round in interviews with other suspects, a trip to the countryside – like an episode of Midsommer Murders – and an delving into an historic crime ensue. Will Horowitz prove his innocence?

I loved the allusions to Horowitz’ writing life – other books in the series are cited, along with Alex Rider and Moonflower Murders and his agent gets a cameo appearance. The cast and production team for the play are small so the interviewing process felt very … contained. I did notice that the writing of the interviews felt a little off: characters spoke at length in long monologues, one might say dramatic monologues, and it felt a little artificial at times… but once I reached the conclusion, it was perhaps a deliberate decision.

Hard bitten or hard boiled detective, this was not but it was a great, entertaining read with a lot of humour. The other actors were rather keen to try to shift the blame for Throsby’s death – of course he agreed that she was vile and should die, of course he knew where she lived before her death – and even Hawthorne’s first words were “Did you do it?” The one point which I felt was a slight misstep was that, when his wife found out that the police were looking for him, she seemed to assume he was guilty too – an accusation which we never saw them work through!

As with the other novels in this series, the real mystery remains Who is Hawthorne? and Horowitz uncovers more information about him in this novel… more information which as usual only makes him more enigmatic not less.