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A Book I Liked This Week

 No writer alive today is more fun for me than Anthony Horowitz. As he has said in interviews, Horowitz writes just for himself. He is not concerned with market trends. He is not looking for Netflix deals. He writes because he has to write. There is a well-populated world inside his head; he knows how to describe that world. His sentences are elegant, and his stories are surprising, well-structured, and weirdly plausible.


The Horowitz/Hawthorne series uses a grammatical or writerly term in each title: "The Word Is Murder," "The Sentence Is Death," "A Line to Kill," "The Twist of a Knife," "Close to Death," "A Deadly Episode." In the newest novel, "Episode," Horowitz is filming a series based on his own books. There is an actor to play Horowitz's detective buddy, Daniel Hawthorne. When the actor is murdered, it looks like a case of professional jealousy "run amok." Is the killer a costar? An agent? A screenwriter? But what if the actor was not the intended victim? What if the killer was actually going after Daniel Hawthorne? He or she saw the character name--"Hawthorne"--on a trailer and assumed that Hawthorne was inside. Then he or she killed an actor (thinking that the actor was Hawthorne). Could this be?

But Hawthorne does not live in a toxic world of ugly pits of professional jealousy. He is not part of Hollywood. No one would *want* to kill him. Right?

Horowitz has read a great deal of Agatha Christie, and like Christie, he can invent a memorable character in five or ten lines. In the new book, I especially like a climate change activist who wants to insert anti-Trump digressions within every scene of the "light entertainment" that she is devising. I also like a haunted young man who may or may not be involved in shady dealings with his gardener.

Horowitz is not notably interested in "deep themes"--though he does comment on marriage, family, and hypocrisy. He makes me think of Beverly Cleary and her advice to writers: Look and listen. Horowitz is a writer who keeps his eyes open.

I really loved the new book.
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