The device allows the author to conduct a running commentary on the process of writing the story, while poking fun at himself. 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. He also takes aim at the world of literary fiction. One of the suspects is a pretentious Japanese author who pens worthy, prize-winning novels and accuses our author hero of being the worst thing imaginable — “a commercial writer”. Confronted with this most baffling of mysteries, the police are forced to turn to private investigator Daniel Hawthorne. After his work on the writer’s TV series, the detective asked the writer if he would be interested in writing a book about him, splitting the profits 50-50. So given I'm averse to reading this type of book, why do I continue with the series? Because they are easy to read, enjoyable, and have genuinely intriguing mysteries. There's a reason Horowitz either wrote or conceived a large number of the TV murder mysteries on British TV in the last 20 years or so - he can think up a great plot and execute it well. Like all crime of this genre (so called 'cosy' crime as opposed to the grittier, more realist stuff) it can be far fetched, but you happily accept that in return for a good read. This one was at the more plausible end of the spectrum. As always, Hawthorne doggedly solves the crime whilst Anthony stumbles along, misconstruing the clues, interrupting at unfortunate times, and generally making a hash of things. Which is quite ironic when you remember that in reality the whole thing has been made up by Horowitz start to finish.

But then this mystery solver is a bit of a mystery himself. We don’t know an awful lot about him, other than he left his job as a police detective under a cloud, has an unpleasant tendency towards homophobia, and enjoys making model airplanes in his spare time. Being killed by lethal injection or being electrocuted is not always smooth and painless, sometimes it causes a painful death creating a five-part legal drama for ITV called Injustice (fact), Horowitz was in need of a police consultant toHorowitz’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. There are a few holes — for example, why do they bring in Hawthorne immediately when the culprit initially seems obvious? — but overall, the ending is surprising without feeling forced. 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. life of an accomplished television creator and novelist, making The Word is Murder and The Sentence is Death a success Gray Rain of Depression: Lampshaded. Rain is pattering the windows when Hawthorne comes to visit Anthony in the hospital, and Anthony says they can't be partners anymore. Hawthorne says that Anthony's only saying that because he's depressed and he'd be in a better mood if the weather were better. 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." writer Anthony Horowitz has an impressive resume. He created the hit television show Foyle’s War for ITV, contributed scripts

Hawthorne and Horowitz start interviewing suspects. Because Horowitz is an observer and is there as a documentarian, he has a chance to watch the ex-detective conduct some testy exchanges between him and his interviewees. Hawthorne’s manner includes pushing people to answer questions from grieving family members and making ill-timed inquiries. As usual, Horowitz can barely stand these sessions. In short, the partners get on each other’s nerves with amusing regularity. Also, Hawthorne has a habit of trying to thwart Horowitz’s attempts to understand him and his thought process. Chekhov's Gunman: Colin, Davina Richardson's pimply 15-year-old son, seen a couple of times when Hawthorne and Anthony come over to grill his mother, a suspect in the Pryce killing. 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.The Watson: Anthony does not like being Watson and decides to solve the case on his own. He is completely wrong, but Hawthorne lets Anthony take his solution to Detective Grunshaw so she can be embarrassed when she arrests the wrong person. This is the second book in a series. The first book amazed me with it's ingenuity - managing to combine the real author and the book's fictional detective, with Anthony Horowitz playing the role of narrator in a fictional story. Sounds very confusing but it isn't and I loved it. So I started this book with high expectations. Asshole Victim: Richard. He only ever paid for anything for Davina to feel better about her husband's death, which he caused, and he refused to pay for his old friend's surgery that would have saved him from a slow and painful death. Odd, considering he didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on the wall by the killer? And, most importantly, which of the man’s many, many enemies did the deed? A man stepped out of the taxi, seemingly unconcerned by the crowd of people around him, many of whom where in period dress.