Thoughts

I've loved every one of these Hawthorne & Horowitz books so it was an absolute no-brainer to pick up the next in the series, particularly reading the premise.

We've gone even more meta than we already were with these books. Horowitz, the author, teaming up with Hawthorne, the private detective, to write books about murders that he looks into. Well, now we're investigating the murder of an actor on the set of an adaptation of the first book in the series. If your mind's not blown yet, it soon will be!

Being on a film set with these characters is brilliant - you get all the usual in-fighting and egos and creative types that you might associate with this industry, alongside the inscrutable behaviour of Hawthorne and the wry cynicism of Horowitz:

...I thought it was questionable to take a real tragedy and real pain and to fictionalise it by changing the location. I did raise this in one of the meetings I had with him before filming started. Would he have shot a historical event such as the Battle of Hastings in the middle of London? I asked. I was only joking but Cy had thought about it for two days and then rang to ask me if I'd be interested in developing a script with him.

The investigation itself was fun, lots of red herrings and twists and turns, I genuinely had no idea who had done it or where it was all going to end. But it's the extra layers that make these books appeal to me. Horowitz (the real one) is so clever but the writing never comes across as showing off or trying to be too clever with the subplots.

This is a book for mystery story fans who want the next level, another dimension of puzzle to wrap your head around: what's fact and what's fiction, and how do they relate to each other. This is a series you do need to start at the beginning, especially for this book that relates back to it. But smart writing and endlessly fascinating characters (more snippets about Hawthorne's history but no answers yet!) will keep you coming back for more.

An absolute 5 out of 5 for me, it would be so easy for this kind of book and series to be smug, but it never is, it's a joy.

Rating: 5 / 5