The Sentence is Death

This is the second novel featuring the retired detective Daniel Hawthorne. It is best to have read the first book in the series, The Word is Murder, to gain more insight into the background.
 
As with the previous book, the narrator is Anthony Horowitz himself - famed screenwriter of Foyle’s War and the children’s Alex Rider series, among many others - who is ostensibly writing a biography of Hawthorne and tags along with him as he is brought in to help solve a new murder mystery (shades of Holmes and Watson).
 
The victim is Richard Pryce, a prominent divorce lawyer, who has been bludgeoned to death with a bottle of very expensive wine. As Pryce is teetotal, what was the wine doing in his home in the first place? And what is the meaning of the numbers 182 painted in green on his wall?
 
Suspicion immediately descends on the haiku and literary author, Akiro Anno, estranged wife of one of his clients, who had created a scene in a restaurant in which she poured wine over Pryce. But this is only the beginning and from then on there are twists and turns a-plenty.
 
Just when you think the case has been cracked there is another sharp swerve in a completely different direction. This is what makes books by Horowitz such a pleasure to read. You are never bored for a minute. There are red herrings and tricks galore with words and numbers.
 
It is also fun trying to decide which of the characters are real individuals in his life - such as his agent, publisher, wife and children - and which ones are made up for the book. (The real ones are probably either chuffed or dismayed at being included and one hopes that if the rather terrifying DI Cara Grunshaw of the Met does really exist, she is sufficiently disguised here not to start a case for libel!)
 
Another brilliant and entertaining five star read. Many thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.

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​booktopia (australia)

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