Century | 2022 | 384p | Review copy and Bought copy | Buy the book
Everything is looking up for our author Anthony Horowitz. His play Mindgame is about to open on the London stage, which means he can finally finish his uneasy literary partnership with former detective Daniel Hawthorne. All is well on opening night and Anthony has reason to be optimistic as he waits at the afterparty for the first reviews to come in. Shockingly, The Sunday Times’ famous critic Harriet Throsby savages the play and its author. It’s the end of the line for the play. It’s also the end of the line for the critic. The next day Harriet is found stabbed, killed by an ornamental knife. Anthony Horowitz owns one very much like it…. The detective in charge has a grudge against Anthony. Daniel Hawthorne might be worth knowing after all.
The Daniel Hawthorne books, of which this is the fourth, are among the most witty, clever and dastardly books that I have ever read. They take apart crime fiction and crime writing and throw it all back together again in a way that leaves the reader, particularly this one, astounded. The fact that the author is one of the two main protagonists, giving astonishing proceedings an air of authenticity and truth, adds an extra edge of fabulous audacity! Anthony tells us everything. He’s at pains to be open with us, to justify himself, and to get things off his chest, especially about Daniel Hawthorne. Daniel is an enigma to Anthony and to us, even though, of course, Anthony Horowitz has created him.
Quite apart from the cleverness of the concept, and the truly brilliant way in which it is delivered, giving the reader all sorts of insight into what life may or may not be like for a successful novelist, The Twist of a Knife is a fantastic crime novel. It has a great plot which, as the title suggests, is as twisty as you could wish, and the characters are so enjoyable, not least the greatly feared Harriet Throsby. The idea that literary critics are being targeted is developed with relish.
As with the other novels, The Twist of a Knife is hugely entertaining and very witty, largely due to its narrator who, in this novel above all others, has much to prove, especially to the police.
I listened to the audiobook, which was read so well by Rory Kinnear. I recommend it!
Other revews
Magpie Murders
The Moonflower Murders
The Word is Murder
The Sentence is Death
A Line to Kill
The Sign of the Devil by Oscar de Muriel
Discoveries of 700-year-old human remains at an archaeological dig in South Leith intrigue DI Tony McLean and his partner Emma but Tony becomes troubled when more bones are recovered, far, far more recent and yet sharing similarities with the ancient remains. And other people are dying. Their deaths appear violent and brutal but no evidence can be found of a killer. Matters aren’t helped by the return to work of Chief Superintendent Gail Elmwood who appears to have had a miraculous recovery from her horrific burns. She wants Tony to work with the charitable Dee Foundation, which is working to clear the streets of drugs and knife crime. Tony knows differently. Jane Louise Dee or Mrs Saifre is Tony’s nemesis of many years’ standing. He knows her to be a monster.
It is 1942 and the Americans have joined the war. With many men away from home, American GIs are helping out in English fields, keeping things going, making friends, falling in love. Women are working alongside them, including female pilots who collect and deliver planes across the country. One of them has a shock when she realises that there is someone on the ground firing at her plane from a barn. When she goes to investigate, she finds a terrified tied-up black American GI who says he had not been kept alone. His friend, a white man, had been taken away, probably to be shot. The army immediately judge him a guilty man. It is up to private detective Maisie Dobbs to discover the truth and clear the soldier’s name before he is transported back to the US. Maisie, married to an American, is better aware than most of the differences between the two nations and of the paramount importance that nothing destroys the relationship between them. Not everyone, it seems, agrees with that.
Adventure journalist Cecily Wong needs a break and she also needs to put the past behind her. To do that she must confront her fears and the golden opportunity comes when legendary mountaineer Charles McVeigh offers her an exclusive interview. If, that is, she can reach the summit of Manaslu in Nepal, the eighth highest mountain in the world. It is a monumental task but Cecily and the other teams on Manaslu will have more than the elements, the lethal terrain and the lack of oxygen to contend with. There is uneasiness among those on the mountain, Cecily hears things she cannot explain, there are memories of fallen climbers, and soon there are deaths.
Erik Amdahl is tormented by nightmares since the death of his daughter Emilie, wanting nothing more than to keep his remaining daughter Sofia safe. But Sofia is becoming a teenager and, finally, Erik accepts that he must fulfil old promises made to both daughters and take Sofia on a great adventure, on the ‘Long Ski’ through the dramatic wilderness of north Norway. But it doesn’t go as planned. A place they presume to be safe turns out to be far from it and soon they must ski for their lives, pursued by ruthless killers, heading deeper and deeper into the glaciers, mountains and forests of an ice-gripped landscape.
The war is over and it is time for the guilty to pay for their atrocities. While the Nazis are rounded up, ready for trial and punishment, their leader is believed dead. He committed suicide in his bunker under Berlin’s bombed streets, his body burned. But did Hitler really die in the bunker. The American and British secret service suspect he escaped, their suspicions supported by a trail of strange and violent deaths in Germany. It is time once more for Tom Wilde, an American Professor of History at Cambridge University and reluctant spy, to head to Germany and follow the clues and trace the witnesses to the truth. But Wilde is not alone. He is paired with Dutch soldier Mozes Heck, who has his own agenda and it could get both of them killed.
Many years ago, schoolboy Steven Smith found on a bus a book by Edith Twyford, a writer now considered old-fashioned, a bit dodgy. It’s covered in strange scribbles and messages. He took it to his teacher Miss Isles who became obsessed with it, believing the book to contain a code that could decipher a great mystery. On a school trip to Bournemouth shortly afterwards, she vanished without trace, her disappearance haunting Steven for the rest of his days.
It is 1937 and Europe is marching towards war, with Civil War already raging in Spain. Idealists on both sides – Communist and Fascist – are drawn to the conflict in Spain, perhaps not realising the horrors they will face there. The Mitford family is as divided as Europe but they come together when they realise that Communist sister Jessica (nicknamed Decca) has eloped to France and believed to be heading for Spain. Their former maid Louisa now runs a private detective agency with her ex-policeman husband Guy and the two of them are surprised when novelist Nancy Mitford hires them to track down Decca and her unsuitable lover. Scandal, war, ruination face the young woman if she cannot be found in time.
In the near future, Earth’s population crisis has been solved through drastic measures. On reaching adulthood, people can select how the rest of their lives will be lived – as a worker in their own bodies, as glamorous and wealthy pleasure-seekers (but for a pitifully short life), as a kind of human-android hybrid. All have their lifespan limited. But, for the longest life, people can opt to share a body – five minds in one body for about 140 years – but with consciousness limited to four hours as each mind takes its turn through the day.
For winter nights - A bookish blog 