Category: Reading Challenges

#BookReview A Line To Kill (Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery 3) by Anthony Horowitz @PenguinUKBooks

whatcathyreadnext6 Comments

A Line To KillAbout the Book

‘I couldn’t see the sea from my bedroom but I could hear the waves breaking in the distance. They reminded me that I was on a tiny island. And I was trapped.’

There has never been a murder on the island of Alderney. But as writers gather for a brand new literary festival a killer lies in wait. An island full of secrets is about to become an island full of suspects…

Private Investigator, Daniel Hawthorne and the writer, Anthony Horowitz have been invited to the festival to talk about their new book. Very soon they discover that dark forces are at work. Alderney is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour. And the visiting authors – including a blind medium, a French performance poet and a celebrity chef – seem to be harbouring any number of unpleasant secrets.

When the festival’s wealthy sponsor is found brutally murdered, Alderney goes into lockdown and Hawthorne knows that he doesn’t have to look too far for suspects.

There’s no escape. The killer is still on the island. And there’s about to be a second death…

Format: Hardcover (384 pages)        Publisher: Century
Publication date: 19th August 2021 Genre: Crime

Find A Line To Kill (Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery, 3) on Goodreads

Pre-order/Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

This book is tremendous fun with plenty of in-jokes and gentle jibes at the publishing industry as well as the author himself. I particularly enjoyed the opening scene in which, with his customary self-mockery, Anthony Horowitz attends a meeting with his publishers to discuss publicity for his book The Word is Murder (the first book in the series) and finds they are much more interested in Hawthorne than they are in him.

Throughout the book, Hawthorne displays observational and deductive skills that would give even Sherlock Holmes a run for his money. Horowitz constantly reminds himself that, when it comes to solving crime, he is not in Hawthorne’s league and his role is merely that of chronicler of Hawthorne’s genius. Of course, in actuality, Hawthorne is Horowitz’s creation and therefore any brilliance displayed by Hawthorne is the author’s own. At one point, as Hawthorne examines the evidence, Horowitz asks, “Do you know who killed him?” and Hawthorne responds, “Is this for the book?” Slipping into author mode Horowitz reassures him, “Don’t worry. If there is a book, I’ll leave the resolution until the last chapter.”  So I loved the fact that the penultimate chapter is entitled ‘Keep Reading’.

Alongside the humour, A Line To Kill is also an ingenious and intriguing murder mystery. There is a plethora of suspects and possible motives, and the island of Alderney, accessible only by plane or ferry, plays the role of the ‘locked room’ so beloved of crime writers. And, of course, not everyone turns out to be who they claim to be.

The final chapter proves an author is always thinking about that next book and trying to come up with a title. In Anthony Horowitz’s case, this has to be one with a grammatical allusion like previous books in the series, having already ruled out the suggested Hawthorne Investigates. I for one certainly hope there is another investigation for Hawthorne and Horowitz before too long.

My thanks to Anna Gibson at Cornerstone for my proof copy. A Line to Kill is book 18 in my 20 Books of Summer 2021.

In three words: Clever, witty, ingenious

Try something similar: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Follow this blog via Bloglovin

AnthonyHorowitzAbout the Author

The author of the bestselling teen spy series, Alex Rider, Anthony Horowitz is also responsible for creating and writing some of the UK’s most loved and successful TV series, including Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War.

He has also written two highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novels, The House of Silk and Moriarty, two James Bond novels, Trigger Mortis and Forever And A Day, and two bestselling crime novels, The Word is Murder and The Sentence is Death, starring Detective Daniel Hawthorne.

In 2016 he wrote Magpie Murders which became a bestseller around the world, and was the recipient of eight literary awards in Japan. Moonflower Murders, published in August 2020 continued the story.

Connect with Anthony
Website | Twitter 

#BookReview Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller @PenguinUKBooks

whatcathyreadnext8 Comments

Unsettled GroundAbout the Book

What if the life you have always known is taken from you in an instant? What would you do to get it back?

Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Their rented cottage is simultaneously their armour against the world and their sanctuary. Inside its walls they make music, in its garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance.

But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood start raining down. At risk of losing everything, Jeanie and her brother must fight to survive in an increasingly dangerous world as their mother’s secrets unfold, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake.

This is a thrilling novel of resilience and hope, of love and survival, that explores with dazzling emotional power how the truths closest to us are often hardest to see.

Format: Hardcover (289 pages)         Publisher: Fig Tree
Publication date:  25th March 2021 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction

Find Unsettled Ground on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

I read Bitter Orange back in 2019 and described it as ‘intense, atmospheric, unsettling’. Intense and unsettling are descriptions that could equally be applied to the author’s latest book, if not more so. Just have a close look at the cover and you’ll discover that what initially looks like a collection of flowers and fruits actually conceals a picture of decay.

The sudden death of Dot, their mother, leaves Jeanie and Julius bereft and unsure of what the future holds for them, living as they do on the margins of society. Fairly quickly they discover that their mother was not quite the person they thought she was as secret after secret comes to the surface.  That knowledge forces them, especially Jeanie, to reconsider the people they thought they were as well, to rewrite their own history.

I liked the perceptive way the book dealt with bereavement, and how the awareness of the absence of a person can strike without warning. At one point, while Julius and Jeanie are playing music as a duo rather than a trio as they formerly would have, Jeanie hears their mother’s banjo ‘like a vacancy in the music; the sparring and blending between the three instruments is missing, her voice absent.’ Jeanie wonders if this is how loss happens – ‘eventually after every activity has been carried out once without Dot’s presence – the potting on of tomatoes, the making of a rabbit pie, the playing of each song, Jeanie will no longer notice her mother is gone.’

The book is a poignant picture of two vulnerable people lurching from one crisis, one disappointment, to another and ill-equipped to cope with the modern world. They live on the edge of a village with an infrequent bus service, where the telephone box has been converted into a library and the delicatessen stocks foodstuffs that Jeanie and Julius could never afford.  It was heartbreaking to witness Jeanie in the local store counting out her pennies in order to decide if she can buy either toilet rolls or shampoo, or forced to eat condensed soup from the can for want of anything else.

For me, the book was really Jeanie’s story. Although it was clear to see the bond between brother and sister, I felt Julius rather faded into the background and that I didn’t know him in quite the way I did Jeanie; as if, although always present, he was somehow remote. I may not have been completely convinced by the motivation of the person who carries out the dramatic event that takes place towards the end of the book but I could certainly believe in Jeanie’s raw grief at its consequences. Prepare to have this book put you through the emotional wringer but, at the same time, leave you believing there is always hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

Unsettled Ground is book 16 of my 20 Books of Summer 2021.

In three words: Intense, perceptive, poignant

Try something similar: Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves by Rachel Malik

Follow this blog via Bloglovin

Claire FullerAbout the Author

Claire Fuller was born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1967. She gained a degree in sculpture from Winchester School of Art, but went on to have a long career in marketing and didn’t start writing until she was forty. She has written three previous novels: Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize, Swimming Lessons, which was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award, and Bitter Orange. Her most recent novel, Unsettled Ground, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband.

Connect with Claire
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram