Tag: NetGalley

#BookReview The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

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The Twist of a KnifeAbout the Book

‘Our deal is over.’

That’s what reluctant author Anthony Horowitz tells ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne in an awkward meeting. The truth is that Anthony has other things on his mind. His new play, Mindgame, is about to open in London’s Vaudeville theatre. Not surprisingly Hawthorne declines a ticket.

On opening night, Sunday Times critic Harriet Throsby gives the play a savage review, focusing particularly on the writing. The next morning she is found dead, stabbed in the heart with an ornamental dagger which, it turns out, belongs to Anthony and which has his finger prints all over it.

Anthony is arrested, charged with Throsby’s murder, thrown into prison and interrogated. Alone and increasingly desperate, he realises only one man can help him.

But will Hawthorne take his call?

Format: Hardback (384 pages)          Publisher: Century
Publication date: 18th August 2022 Genre: Crime

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My Review

Hmm, how to approach writing a review of a book in which a woman is murdered after writing a negative review? How to resist ‘the pleasure that comes with the twist of a knife’? Just tell the truth, of course.

The Twist of a Knife is the fourth in the author’s crime mystery series featuring ex-Detective Inspector Hawthorne and author Anthony Horowitz in the role of sidekick and, in this case, murder suspect. I really enjoyed the two previous books in the series I’ve read – The Word in Murder and A Line to Kill – and at some point I will get around to reading the second book, The Sentence is Death.

A Twist of the Knife has all the elements fans of the series have come to expect, including the author’s deadpan humour. ‘St John’s Gardens had originally been a cemetery but the dead bodies had all been removed (to Woking, which must have surprised them)’. And when he is arrested, he is sure sales of his children’s books will collapse but that it might help his crime fiction. There are plenty of references to the author’s work – his Alex Rider series, his TV drama Foyles War – and he admits, ‘If there’s a book of mine in a room, it’s always the first thing I’ll see’ but these are balanced by his self-deprecating observations.

Hawthorne is his same old self – taciturn, dismissive of his former colleagues, not afraid to tell a porkie or two to get access to a suspect or when questioning a witness, or to call on the skills of his neighbour Kevin. And Hawthorne’s remarkable observational and deductive skills are once again on display. The author teases us with some more details about Hawthorne’s childhood and private life, although tantalisingly his literary alter ego stops short of further probing even when given an unexpected opportunity. Hawthorne warns him, ‘I don’t want you talking about how and where I live. All right? And I definitely don’t want to read about it in your book’. Oops.

We also learn a few things about Anthony Horowitz, namely that he’s not averse to a bowl of Coco Pops and his library contains five hundred books. (I bet he has more than that really but I completely believe he possesses all the Bond novels and a signed copy of I, Claudius found in a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye.)

The book has a colourful cast of characters, including those appearing in Horowitz’s comedy thriller, Mindgame, the play which attracts such a scathing review from feared theatre critic, Harriet Throsby. Just about everyone has the motive, means and opportunity to have committed the murder but none of them has so much evidence pointing to them as the culprit as Anthony Horowitz.  Did he do it or is someone out to get him?

The final act sees Hawthorne create a mise-en-scène reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel. Has he worked out whodunnit it? Of course he has. Will you have? I very much doubt it.

The Twist of a Knife is another highly entertaining murder mystery, full of wit and invention.

My thanks to Century for my digital review copy via NetGalley.

In three words: Clever, witty, entertaining

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AnthonyHorowitzAbout 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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The Twist of a Knife Anthony Horowitzwitz

#BookReview Bad Relations by Cressida Connolly

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Bad RelationsAbout the Book

On the battlefields of the Crimea, William Gale cradles the still-warm body of his brother. William’s experience of war is to bring about a change in him that will reverberate through his family over the next two centuries.

In the 1970s, William’s English descendants invite Stephen, a distant Australian cousin, to stay in their bohemian house in Cornwall – but their golden summer entanglements will end in a dramatic fall from grace.

Half a century later, a confrontation between the surviving members of the family culminates in a terrible reckoning.

Format: Hardback (288 pages)     Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 19th May 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The first thing to say is that if you looked at the cover without reading the blurb you might be surprised to discover the first part of the book, making up nearly one third of the story, is set during the Crimean War.

I found these early chapters particularly powerful, depicting as they do the mismanagement of the campaign and the needless loss of life both as a result of the conflict and of disease. An officer in The Royal Welch Fusiliers, William Gale returns from the Crimean war to a hero’s welcome but is a changed man. Whether as a result of the trauma of his experiences or the manipulation of others, he makes a rather inexplicable decision that has longlasting repercussions for his family, especially for his wife, Alice, and their young son.

The novel than makes a massive jump in time – from the 1850s to the 1970s. I found myself rather disappointed that I wasn’t going to learn more about what happens to William and Alice (particularly Alice, who comes across as a really interesting character) or their descendants over the next century. Instead we find ourselves in the 1970s, generations later, with a story that explores family dynamics in an insightful way but which seems quite different from what went before. Having said that, I have to admit the author does a great job of matching her writing style to the different periods: the formality of the Victorian age in the first part of the book and the more vibrant and liberated spirit of the second part, all ‘sex and drugs and rock’n’roll’.

The connection between the first and second part of the book felt a little tangential. Although it features descendants of William and Alice Gale, it could really have involved any family group to which an outsider is introduced. In fact, I think the second part of the novel could have made a book in itself because the story is compelling, insightful and ultimately rather sad. To me, the third and final part of the book felt a little like a prolonged epilogue, a way of tying up some loose ends, in particular regarding an object that features in the first two parts. And I’m not sure that I would categorise the book’s conclusion as ‘a terrible reckoning’ – more some expression of home truths – and I felt it ended on quite an uplifting note.  Some of the characters who reappear in the final part of the book were a lot less likeable than when we first encountered them. For example, the beautiful Cass seems to have been transformed from coolly unattainable to rather cold and avaricous, especially when the prospect of an unexpected fortune presents itself. This contrasts with one of the new characters, Stephen’s sister Hazel, who despite being treated with a degree of snobbery comes across as entirely open and honest in her intentions.

At times Bad Relations seemed to me like three separate books. (I confess I did have the uncharitable thought that the author may have come up with three ideas, couldn’t decide which one she liked best and so put them all together.)  In a way I felt the same about Bad Relations as I did about the author’s earlier book, After the Party, that whilst I admired the skilful writing and there were bits of it I enjoyed, overall I was left with a slight sense of disappointment.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of Viking via NetGalley.

In three words: Insightful, emotional, thoughtful

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About the Author

Cressida Connolly is a reviewer and journalist, who has written for Vogue, the Telegraph, the Spectator, the Guardian and numerous other publications. Cressida’s book, The Happiest Days, won the MacMillan/PEN Award. She is the daughter of writer Cyril Connolly and lives in Worcestershire.