The Word Is Murder
SHE PLANNED HER OWN FUNERAL. BUT DID SHE ARRANGE HER OWN MURDER?
New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty, Anthony Horowitz has yet again brilliantly reinvented the classic crime novel, this time writing a fictional version of himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes.
One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper – the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service.
Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home.
Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who’s as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz.
Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying but even so his latest case with its many twists and turns proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own.
A masterful and tricky mystery that springs many surprises, The Word is Murder is Anthony Horowitz at his very best.
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Anthony Horowitz
Long before Alex Rider became a teenage icon or Sherlock Holmes returned to the page with fresh intrigue, Anthony Horowitz was crafting mysteries of his own—first in his imagination, then on the page. Born in 1955 in Middlesex, England, Horowitz grew up surrounded by stories, both real and invented. He discovered early that fiction was more than escape; it was a place to find order in chaos, to solve puzzles that real life couldn’t.
What sets Horowitz apart in the world of crime and thriller fiction is not just the breadth of his work, but the way he reinvents the familiar. Whether he’s breathing new life into Conan Doyle’s beloved detective or twisting timelines in Magpie Murders, Horowitz writes with a sleight of hand that keeps readers constantly guessing—and always a step behind. His novels don’t simply offer whodunits; they explore the act of storytelling itself, often blurring the line between author and character, fiction and reality.
Hawthorne and Horowitz Investigate
In a genre obsessed with control, here’s a mystery series that thrives on unpredictability—even for its narrator.
The Hawthorne and Horowitz Investigate novels crack open the traditional detective story and rearrange the pieces with sly wit and unnerving precision. At the center is Daniel Hawthorne, a former detective with a genius for deduction and a habit of keeping everyone—especially his biographer—in the dark. That biographer? A fictionalized version of the author himself, reluctantly dragged into real-life murder cases and quickly realizing that writing the story is nothing compared to living inside it.
Hawthorne and Horowitz Investigate consists of five books and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
