Book Reviews: The Word is Murder and The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

BRILLIANT!

I love these books. I read the first (The Word is Murder) last year when it was released, then re-read it prior to starting this new one simply for the delight of stretching out the series… When I saw the second (The Sentence is Death) was available on NetGalley, I couldn’t wait to request it – and almost as soon as I was approved, I dug in (I’d started TWiM as soon as I requested the second, so there’d be no delays). I LOVE Horowitz’s writing. He covers everything from Sherlock Holmes to detectives to James Bond to middle-grade books and does so with a pitch-perfect ear for detail and resonance, managing to hit just the right frequency for his current topic every time. The pages fly by and the stories reveal themselves with just the right pacing and eye for detail. It makes them fast, easy, wholly engaging reads.

I love books about books and writing, particularly when they blur established lines into a fuzzy mess… Anthony Horowitz is a master of language and does a magnificent job creating worlds that are just slightly off-kilter but feel all too real even when the events being described are anything but. If you don’t know his work, you really should – and The Word is Murder is a great start because it’s about him and his previous books (sort of) and the meta- way that Horowitz blends the murder and the backstory and the surrounds is spot-on brilliant and exceptionally entertaining.

Horowitz has done an absolutely marvelous job blurring the lines between fact and fiction by inserting himself wholeheartedly into his narratives, and the result is genius. I love the interplay between the author and Hawthorne – and that I never entirely know what is fiction and what fact, since many of the details that are so carefully interwoven into the story (especially the small ones) have such a ring of truth and recognition about them… It makes for a thoroughly engaging romp of a tale, particularly when worked into, over, through, and around the quasi-Holmes/Watson relationship between the two men. The Sentence is Death continues to tease out details about Hawthorne in a way that emphasizes Horowitz’ frustration with the books and also his increasing involvement in the underlying mysteries – to, of course, unexpected (and unexpectedly off-kilter) extents.

The writing is a delight, the plots are ingenious (even – if not especially – when elements of them fall just this side of oddball), and the red herrings and misunderstandings mean that you are engaged right up until the last pages. And if that wasn’t enough, Horowitz’s wry and self-deprecating voice ties the whole thing together with a big red bow. It’s a truly fantastic series!

The Word is Murder is available now. The Sentence is Death releases in the U.S. on May 28, 2019. My review copy of the latter was provided via NetGalley.