Review: The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

Kerry Hammond is a fan of everything Anthony Horowitz writes and she’s here today to tell us about his latest release.

Anthony Horowitz is the author of standalone mystery novels, a bestselling young adult series, books featuring James Bond and Sherlock Holmes, as well as hundreds of episodes for British shows such as Foyle’s War and Midsomer Murders. His most recent novel, The Sentence is Death, was released in Hardcover on May 28, by Harper. It’s the second book in a series where the author writes himself in as a character, working alongside private investigator Daniel Hawthorne.

In The Sentence is Death, Daniel Hawthorne once again seeks the assistance of writer Anthony Horowitz to chronicle his work as a private detective. He wanders onto the set of Foyle’s War where Horowitz is working and asks him to join him on a case. He is investigating the murder of divorce lawyer Richard Pryce. There are several people who might want to harm the lawyer, but one in particular threatened him in the exact way he was killed.

Hawthorne and Horowitz soon learn of another death that may be connected to their current investigation and the shared history of the two victims opens up an even bigger pool of suspects. Horowitz blunders his way into the investigation but doesn’t seem to be able to make any sense of the clues, all the while managing to irritate the police detective who is working the case.

The lines between fact and fiction are deliciously skewed as Horowitz writes himself into the plot of the book, even incorporating his work on the Foyle’s War set. He paints himself as an inferior Watson to Hawthorne’s Holmes, struggling to piece together the clues and solve the case alongside the ex-policeman. As before, he fails miserably and Hawthorne’s deductive reasoning outshines any contribution he may have had. It’s a clever premise for an author to write himself into the mystery and Horowitz manages to do it with ease. As with all of his novels, the story is cleverly plotted so that this reader was also two steps behind Hawthorne and the big reveal.

This book was provided to Mystery Playground by the publisher. The review was fair and completely independent.

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