Anthony Horowitz gets away with murder in all sorts of ways and emerges triumphant. He has made himself this novel’s narrator and main character, often talking about his real life. His fictional role is that of a sort of dim sidekick to an unpleasant private investigator, Daniel Hawthorne. The plot is clever, marred — no, enhanced — by being peppered with (deliberate) flaws and absurdities... But never mind the details; count the laughs.
This time, the former detective wants Horowitz to chronicle his investigation into the murder of a celebrity divorce lawyer, Richard Pryce, who has been bludgeoned with a bottle of wine, then stabbed with its jagged fragments. Coincidentally or not, Pryce had been acting in the divorce case of a famous feminist writer who had threatened to hit him with a wine bottle.
With its teasing mix of real and fictional characters, Horowitz’s fast-paced novel remains tantalising to the final page.
