#BookReview The Sentence Is Death by Anthony Horowitz

About the Book

“You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late…”

These, heard over the phone, were the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer. Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death in his bachelor pad with a bottle of wine – a 1982 Chateau Lafite worth £3,000, to be precise.

Odd, considering he didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on the wall by the killer? And, most importantly, which of the man’s many, many enemies did the deed?

Baffled, the police are forced to bring in Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, the author Anthony, who’s really getting rather good at this murder investigation business.

But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide. As our reluctant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case, he realises that these secrets must be exposed – even at the risk of death…

Format: Hardback (384 pages)            Publisher: Century
Publication date: 1st November 2018 Genre: Crime

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My Review

The Sentence is Death is the second book in the author”s crime mystery series featuring former Detective Inspector turned private investigator Daniel Hawthorne, and his often hapless sidekick, one Anthony Horowitz. I’m a huge fan of the series and, in fact, I’ve read all the other books – The Word is Murder, A Line to Kill and The Twist of a Knife. This one completes the set. It’s also one of the books on my list for the #NetGalleyNovember reading challenge having been languishing on my NetGalley shelf for four years.

I always imagine Anthony Horowitz chuckling away to himself as he writes these books because of our narrator’s constant grumbling about how he would much rather be writing fiction than, in his role as Hawthorne’s biographer, dutifully documenting the progress of the investigation, and how he wishes he could include scenes that would be more exciting for the reader. ‘Sadly, none of these possibilities were available to me. I was stuck with the facts. My job was to follow Hawthorne’s investigation, setting down his questions and occasionally trying, without much success, to make sense of the answers. It was really quite frustrating. It wasn’t so much writing as recording.’

Horowitz longs to find out more about Hawthorne, more than just that he likes constructing Airfix models, belongs to a book club and is a chain smoker. He’s also intrigued by Hawthorne’s past, convinced there is some secret to do with Hawthorne’s dismissal from the police force, and eagerly collecting any scrap of information. Hawthorne’s plain-speaking and non-PC views also concern him. After documenting one particular conversation, he protests ‘I can’t put that sort of stuff in the book… People won’t like it… They won’t like you’.

Horowitz acts as a kind of Dr Watson to Hawthorne’s Sherlock Holmes, even if Hawthorne is rather scathing about the abilities of Conan Doyle’s fictional creation. Anthony is always one step behind when it comes to spotting the clues that will lead to the identity of the murderer. Actually, that’s a bit unfair; he often spots the clues but reaches a completely wrong conclusion about what they mean.  From time to time he gets a little disgruntled at Hawthorne’s unwillingness to share his thoughts on the case. ‘Whenever Hawthorne saw anything or worked something out, he deliberately kept it from me as if the whole thing was some sort of game.’

Each of the book’s cast of characters at one point or another appears to have the motive, means and opportunity to have committed the murder of Richard Pryce. As Horowitz innocently observes, ‘It was almost as if they were queuing up to be suspects’. There are the usual red herrings and false trails beloved of crime novelists, as well as cast-iron alibis than turn out to be anything but. Horowitz also comes up against the formidable DI Cara Grunshaw who is determined to beat Hawthorne to an arrest and doesn’t much care what she has to do to achieve it.

Alongside the investigation, there are references to the author’s work – his Alex Rider series, his Sherlock Holmes novels and his TV drama Foyles War – but these are balanced by his self-deprecating observations. There is also some gentle poking of fun at the snobbery of the literary establishment. And I suspect the author had a lot of fun writing the excerpt from a Game of Thrones-like fantasy novel.

The Sentence is Death is a clever, witty and thoroughly entertaining murder mystery.

Try something similar: A Three Dog Problem by S. J. Bennett

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About the Author

Bestselling author Anthony Horowitz has written two highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novels, The House of Silk and Moriarty; three James Bond novels, Trigger Mortis, Forever and a Day and With a Mind to Kill; the acclaimed bestselling mystery novels Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders and the Detective Hawthorne novels, The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death, A Line To Kill, and the latest A Twist of Knife.

He is also the author of the teen spy Alex Rider series, and responsible for creating and writing some of the UK’s most loved and successful TV series, including Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War. In January 2022 he was awarded a CBE for his services to literature.

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