Reviews

The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

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lizzillia's review against another edition

4.5

Another in this series which features an ex-DI - Hawthorne and Anthony Horowitz as himself. Once again there is a cast of characters - literally in this one as a critic who slammed Horowitz's play 'Mindgame' on it's opening night has been murdered and everyone involved in the production is suspected. However - the police zoom in on Horowitz and he is whisked off to the cells. Who does he call with his one phone call? That's a problem. The premise of the series is that Horowitz signed a book deal to write about Hawthorne and his past cases. In all crime series, both Hawthorne and Horowitz have been involved in actual murders and the books have not been about past cases but about ones that they have been drawn into. The problem is that Hawthorne wanted to do another book and Horowitz had said no - so they're not really speaking. Can he still phone him in his hour of need? Yes. So the book is about the investigation that the two carry out to prove Horowitz's innocence. This is a fun read and the snippets that Horowitz drops in about himself - are they true? Does he really enjoy Coco-Pops? There are lots of lovely lines where his dry humour comes through too. Everyone has a motive to kill the critic but why do they also want to frame Horowitz? It's a good read, I never guessed it - will you?

sfs_reads's review against another edition

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funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

em_georgia72's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

shmadsie's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5. This has definitely been my favorite so far and I think a lot of that had to do with getting glimpses of Hawthorne's sense of humor, which is objectively freaking grand. Anthony showing up to hide from the police at his place and him being completely unconcerned but hamming it up to try to get Anthony going was hilarious. As was him staging the denouement in a Christie-esque fashion solely for it to make a great scene in the future book. What took away from it this time for me was that it was occasionally hard to suspend disbelief, and it was because the book was so good at getting me to do it to start that it was so jarring to resurface. I loved the comedy of that phone call with Anthony's wife but her being such a removable piece as the main character's spouse just didn't seem very realistic at all, the same way it's weird that Anthony's kids don't even get a mention while he's worrying about potentially going to prison. It's a hard thing to insert yourself into a story but, if you're going to do it, there's no halfway. Normally it works because this is just his job, following a "detective" around for a story, but this time it was incredibly personal and that means a personal life has got to come into play - even if you limit it to a forty-eight hour deadline.

mollyhee's review against another edition

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5.0

Love Anthony Horowitz’s book as usual, but am I missing the evidence here?

Also it would be wonderful if we’re getting at least 3 more books in this series as it was suggested in this book. But it’s hard to tell what to believe when an author writes himself (brilliantly) into his own book.