390 pages
English language
Published Feb. 26, 2018
One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper - the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who's as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz. Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying but even so his latest case with its many twists and turns proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his …
One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper - the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who's as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz. Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying but even so his latest case with its many twists and turns proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own.
Kul metabok där Harowitz "spelar" sig själv och tar rygg på en privatdetektiv. Ett mystiskt mord leder till en mysig och rätt ofta självförklarande jakt genom England. Om det inte var för karaktärerna och att boken var hade en bra uppläsare skulle jag inte läst klart det. Men nu vill jag veta mer om detektiven Hawthorne. Jag har redan lagt till bok nummer två i läslistan.
I didn't like the main clue, but it wasn't because it was bad. It's because I'm an uneducated slob.
It was good for some things
Didn't enjoy this as much as Magpie Murders, but it was a nice mental break at a time when life was just throwing way too much reality at me. The idea of using himself as a (presumably fictional) character in his own fiction was novel, but Magpie was cleverer. Still, you can't go too far wrong with Horowitz; there's a reason people love this guy's stuff.
