Real Person Cameo: Anthony Horowitz's wife Jill and agent Hilda Starke pop up again as characters; neither of them like Anthony writing Hawthorne books.

And who was at his front door just minutes before he died and while he was still talking on the phone? Lady Drunk: Davina Richardson, who has never gotten over the loss of her husband 12 years ago, talks about how lonely she is, and is always drinking whenever Hawthorne and Anthony come over. Despite struggling with the way this series mixes reality and fiction, they are good enough mysteries that I'm continuing to read my way through it. Along with the wife of the property developer, the men interview the less than grief-stricken Spencer, an interior designer who was left a large amount of money in Pryce’s will, and an unidentified man who had been following Pryce. Bestselling author Anthony Horowitz has written two highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novels, The House of Silk and Moriarty; three James Bond novels, Trigger Mortis, Forever and a Day and With a Mind to Kill; the acclaimed bestselling mystery novels Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders and the Detective Hawthorne novels, The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death, A Line To Kill, The Twist of a Knife and the latest Close to Death is out in April 2024.Colin is the killer, having gone over to Pryce's home and killed him after overhearing Greg Taylor admit to Davina that he and Richard abandoned Charlie in the cave to drown.

Horowitz’s wife, agent and editor all crop up as characters, along with others who weren’t so happy to appear — it seems at least one person threatened legal action over her depiction. Immediately AH sucks in the reader with his intimate and chatty style of writing that gives the impression he is talking to you alone. He is also the author of the teen spy Alex Rider series, and responsible for creating and writing some of the UK's most loved and successful TV series, including Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War. There are a few holes — for example, why do they bring in Hawthorne immediately when the culprit initially seems obvious?A leading divorce lawyer is messily murdered in his Hampstead home, bludgeoned with a bottle of vintage wine. AH, as the narrator, is the observer in this book and the reader sees everything through his eyes, making us strongly connected to him. Horowitz’s unfortunate portrayals do distract from the overall story, which is a shame because in and of itself the core mystery of “The Sentence is Death” is truly entertaining. Baffled, the police are forced to bring in Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, the author Anthony, who’s really getting rather good at this murder investigation business. But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide.

Then Hawthorne points at the rain hitting the window and says "That's an example of that thing authors put in books when the weather makes a difference to the way people feel. The biggest letdown is that the mystery of Hawthorne’s past, which Horowitz is constantly fretting about and trying to discover, is no closer to being solved by the end of this second installment.

Although Anthony is not too keen on Hawthorne, the details of the case pique him and he reluctantly agrees to document the case.

In the second book of this series, we see Horowitz himself as the narrator again — a breaking of the fourth wall of sorts. Confronted with this most baffling of mysteries, the police are forced to turn to private investigator Daniel Hawthorne. Horowitz is perhaps best known as the creator of the Alex Rider children’s books, yet, in a running gag, no one can remember his hero’s name. I thought the idea of putting himself in the book was something of a gimmick when I first learned of it, but Horowitz really pulls it off in this series.The story focuses on solving the murder of a teetotaling solicitor who was murdered with an expensive bottle of wine. But Hawthorne himself has secrets to hide and as our reluctant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case he realises that these are secrets that need to be exposed - even if it puts his own life in danger . for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.