A Line to Kill

Anthony Horowitz was brilliant, and I am sorry he's no longer with us, writing more books. I love whodunits and thrillers, especially when they can be described as equally literary and riveting, so I was most pleased to discover Horowitz's clever (very) series of 5 Daniel Hawthorne mystery detective stories, in which he, the writer himself, is a character. I arbitrarily chose this one as my favorite of what I’ve read so far, but I’ve enjoyed them all. It was impossible to choose honestly. (However, I would have enjoyed the first one more if the second murder hadn’t been so… show more.

From the days of my youth, I’ve always had an interest in stories relating to the pursuit of murderers by a Sherlock Holmes type of character. Anthony Horowitz excels in this novel with his character, Daniel Hawthorne, an ex-detective who is determined to solve the mystery Horowitz so artfully lays out. While attending a literary festival at an island once held by the Nazis, two murders take place which throw shadows over those attending as they each are faced with Hawthorne, now on loan by the police, to aid in finding the killer. As a former federal investigator, I found… show more.

A Line to Kill is the third in the Detective Hawthorne series by Anthony Horowitz, creator of the TV series Foyle’s War and a screenwriter for the popular Midsomer Murders. Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his slow-witted, Captain-Hastings-like chronicler, Anthony Horowitz (yes, the author writes himself into the story) are invited to a literary festival on the tiny Channel island of Alderney. With a bizarre murder to solve, an island cut off from the mainland, a limited number of suspects, and a classic locked-room puzzle plot, Horowitz evokes the finest traditions of the Golden Age—with his own modern take… show more.