Review: CLOSE TO DEATH, Anthony Horowitz

• 
• This edition supplied by my local library
  
• Published by Penguin Random House 2024
• ISBN 9781529904246
• 415 pages 
• Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery #5

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

In New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fifth literary whodunnit in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case—a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound.

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong, and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll, until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, gaggle of shrieking children, and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and quickly offend every last one of the neighbors.

When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator they can call to solve the case.

Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect? 

My Take

I'd forgotten the structure of my first experience of this series - the fact that the author actually makes an appearance in the novel as himself. That makes reading the novel a bit of a challenge - part of the narrative is in the third person, retelling and embellishing what investigator Daniel Hawthorne has told the author; and part of it is in the first person as the author steps onto the canvas himself and converses with the characters.

The plot is in fact quite complex, lots of solutions are on offer to the two murders that take place, and there is eventually a third murder that takes some believing.

In Acknowledgements in the final pages the author tells the readers that this was a complicated novel to write, and that while it was finished in 2020, for one reason another it wasn't published till 2024. 

Enjoy!

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

• 4.5, THE HOUSE OF SILK
  4.7, MAGPIE MURDERS
  4.3, THE WORD IS MURDER -Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery #1

About the author

You've probably come across the work of Anthony Horowitz without realising it:

Anthony Horowitz is the author of the bestselling teen spy series, Alex Rider, and is also responsible for creating and writing some of the UK's most loved and successful TV series, including Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.

He has also written two highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novels, The House of Silk and Moriarty; a James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis; and his most recent stand-alone novel, Magpie Murders, was a Top Five Sunday Times bestseller.

He is on the board of the Old Vic Theatre, and was awarded an OBE for his services to literature in January 2014.