Blind Seer: One of the authors at the literary festival, Elizabeth Lovell, is a blind woman who claims that going blind gave her the power to talk to spirits on "the other side of the mirror", aka the afterlife. She calls it "blind sight". Subverted in that Daniel and Anthony are both positive she's faking, and they're right. Double subverted when it turns out she isn't even blind. The third instalment seeks to refresh the formula by having Hawthorne attend a book fair to publicise the first novel on a tiny island off the coast of the UK. A group of writers attending the festival are invited to a reception party at the palatial home of their wealthy host, a lecherous and loathsome playboy. Refuge in Audacity: Hawthorne calls out Anne and Kathryn as murderers, refusing their plea to be Let Off by the Detective and telling them that they've got to answer for their crimes. Then he pulls out a copy of one of Anne's children's books and asks her to autograph it, as his son is a big fan. She does.

This book is a pure pleasure to read and enjoy and Jan and I took part in both the enjoyment and the pleasure of a well done whodunnit.Author Avatar: The conceit of the whole Daniel Hawthorne series, as Anthony Horowitz writes himself in as a character, the Watson who is continually irritated by Hawthorne's refusal to tell what he's thinking. As the story opens Horowitz and Hawthorne are meeting with Horowitz's publishers to discuss a publicity campaign for their first collaborative book.

True to Horowitz form, there is a murder right as the festival begins. A gentleman, who owns an online gambling company is found dead, stabbed to death. What is unusual, is he taped to a chair with his right hand free. The island has no residing police force, so Hawthorne decides to take the lead on the murder. Of course, a second murder complicates the investigations. Furthermore, the men discover that a controversial power line is planned to be developed on the island adding fodder for motive. The duo have been invited to a minor literary festival on the picturesque British island of Alderney, and though Horowitz is unenthusiastic, Hawthorne is eager to attend. This seems out of character for the sleuth, but the men agree to participate in the event. A Line to Kill finds us with Hawthorne and Horowitz at a book festival on the island of Alderney southeast of England. Seems like a ho-hum jaunt into literature for Hawthorne who will be on stage with Horowitz to discuss their books. Horowitz doesn't quite know what to make of his fellow authors who represent cook books to poetry to children's books to psychic readings. He's more worried about Hawthorne's ill-prepared manner than anything else. Speaking to Anthony Horowitz invariably involves looking ahead. Last time when we spoke for Moonflower Murders , we were also speaking of the third book in his Daniel Hawthorne series. And now as we talk of the third book, A Line to Kill (Penguin Random House) we are also talking about the third James Bond novel Horowitz has been commissioned to write by the Ian Fleming estate.Lesley is absolutely wonderful and Cattaneo is one of the most brilliant directors I’ve worked with.”

Elizabeth Lovell – A blind psychic, author of several successful autobiographical books regarding the spirit world. Accompanying her, her husband Sid. There is a running joke about titles in the novels with Hawthorne suggesting ‘Hawthorne Investigates’, and dismissing The Word is Murder as “too poncy”. “I am trying for a literary twist to the titles. The first was The Word is Murder and the second The Sentence is Death . I have painted myself into a corner because you run out of grammatical phrases for a murder story, so perhaps it was a mistake to keep trying to make some kind of allusion to writing.” Life-or-Death Question: Le Mesurier is given the choice of calling a coin toss to save his life. But not really, because the killers admitted they were going to murder him regardless.There was no danger that the book would come out like an ego trip, says Horowitz. “At the end of the day, I’m only the narrator, not the main character. You do not learn a great deal about me in the book. The book is about Hawthorne, and me writing about Hawthorne. What it does allow me to do as a writer, is to write about the nature of a whodunit.” accompanies Daniel Hawthorne - a former Scotland Yard detective who became a private sleuth - on an investigation. Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and the writer Anthony Horowitz have been invited to a literary festival on the island of Alderney to talk about their new book . . . Closed Circle: Alderney, a rather small island, although played with in that the suspects actually do leave after three days and aren't trapped there the whole time. Naturally, while the book within the book talks of a three-title deal for the Hawthorne Investigates series, the ending here leaves open the prospect of even more of these volumes to come. That’s a no from me.

Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: While Hawthorne has some sympathy for the suicide of Anne Cleary's son, he bluntly tells her that it doesn't justify murder. Realising all these permutations had been done, Horowitz began to wonder what would make his series different. Even though Anne showed Horowitz and Hawthorne a letter stating that she was dying of heart disease and she claimed Kathryn had little to do with the murders, Hawthorne still insisted that they turn themselves in to the police. When I recognised the Christie-style set-up, I immediately wondered if this was a step too far for Horowitz. The Susan Ryeland series is already an ingenious and compelling homage to the world’s most successful author of fiction and I wondered if A Line to Kill would blur the boundaries between the two series. It does not and each in is, in its own unique way, providing contemporary crime fiction with a much-needed revitalisation.Hawthorne and Horowitz arrive at an island for a writers’ conference invited by Charles leMesurier, a rich man, who is pushing for an electrical line running through the island he and his wife reside on. Needless to say, there are many residents of the island opposing this idea and the list of possible suspects increase as said rich man is found murdered.