Hawthorne and Horowitz Investigate · #4
The Twist of a Knife
'Our deal is over.'
That's what reluctant author Anthony Horowitz tells ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne in an awkward meeting. The truth is that Anthony has other things on his mind.
His new play, Mindgame, is about to open in London's Vaudeville theatre. Not surprisingly Hawthorne declines a ticket.
On opening night, Sunday Times critic Harriet Throsby gives the play a savage review, focusing particularly on the writing. The next morning she is found dead, stabbed in the heart with an ornamental dagger which, it turns out, belongs to Anthony and which has his finger prints all over it.
Anthony is arrested, charged with Throsby's murder, thrown into prison and interrogated.
Alone and increasingly desperate, he realises only one man can help him.
But will Hawthorne take his call?
The series
In a genre obsessed with control, here’s a mystery series that thrives on unpredictability—even for its narrator.
Read full series description
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.
What unfolds is more than just a whodunit. These are layered, metafictional mysteries that explore not only the crimes at hand but also the act of storytelling itself. The investigations lead readers through elegant country homes, shadowy corridors, and grimy back alleys, but it’s the strange dance between Hawthorne and his chronicler that gives the series its unsettling charm. Their dynamic is sharp-edged, often funny, and filled with questions—many of which the author may never get answers to.
Told with the kind of confidence that only comes from deconstructing the genre from the inside out, this series invites readers to solve the puzzle even as it rewrites the rules. Clues are laid with care, red herrings are brilliantly placed, and beneath it all, there's an ever-present question: who’s really in control of the story?
Blending classic British mystery with a postmodern twist, this is crime fiction that plays fair—until it doesn’t. And that’s exactly what makes it so irresistible.
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