Brilliance

Anthony Horowitz, the successful British mystery writer, turns himself into a fictional character in his popular Daniel Hawthorne series of novels. The third book in the series, A Line to Kill (2021), proves as pleasing as the others.

Hawthorne is a former police investigator who lost his job after being suspected of pushing a crime suspect down a flight of stairs. Yet because he is such a better detective than those on the force, he is called in to assist with tough cases. Horowitz plays the role of Hawthorne's bumbling Watson who tags along to observe and eventually write about the investigator's brilliance.

This time the pair are invited to a book festival on the island of Alderney, where residents brag there has never been a murder. Yet there are two puzzling murders during the few days they are on the island. Why anyone would commit a murder while a famous detective is on the scene is one mystery that remains unsolved in this novel.

The guests at this festival become suspects after a wealthy party host is found stabbed to death. Later the body of his wife is found. Yet the main suspect appears to be a man named Derek Abbott, the very man, a suspected dealer in kiddie porn, whom Hawthorne supposedly pushed down those stairs. Yet this seems too easy, both for the reader and for Horowitz, who wonders if he can even turn this case into a book.

The final solution, of course, proves more interesting and more satisfying, thanks to Hawthorne's brilliance as a detective and Horowitz's brilliance as a writer.