I don’t often write book reviews but I’ve now read two series of mystery novels written by Anthony Horowitz. I really enjoyed both of them.
The Hawthorne series
My favourite is the one featuring Hawthorne, the grumpy detective, in which Anthony features as his hapless sidekick. Hawthorne is a difficult character who was kicked out of the Metropolitan police for pushing a criminal down the stairs. One day he decides he wants to feature in a book about his own exploits, so he contacts Anthony and asks him to write a novel about his latest case. Naturally, Anthony has reservations about this and rather reluctantly agrees. It all makes for highly amusing reading.
It was an unusual and clever idea, in my opinion, for the author to add himself into the book and I think it works well. He has a good sense of humour and, because of this, the Anthony Horowitz in the novel gets into all sorts of trouble, never seems to get the killer right and inevitably has to be rescued from a terrible ordeal at the end!
Susan Ryeland mystery series
The last series I’ve finished concludes with his most recent novel, Marble Hall Murders, which is book number three in the Susan Ryeland series. This was an interesting project because he started out intending to write one book, then decided to add another one, and finally the actor playing the part of Susan in the TV adaptation liked the role so much she persuaded the author to write a third book.
What is fascinating about this series is that it’s like a dual timeline where the mystery comes from a novel within the book and Susan, in the present, attempts to unravel what turn out to be intricate and interconnected mysteries.
Neither violent crime nor cozy mystery
I watched the author being interviewed recently and he mentioned he doesn’t like to write violent crime, but he also doesn’t write cozy mystery. These books that I’ve read of his come somewhere in the middle, and that’s the genre that I like. They are intelligently written and also available as audiobooks which helps if you, like me, enjoy listening to stories at night.