The Word Is Murder

Diana Cowper, an elegant elderly woman goes to an undertaker to sort out her funeral. This is not absolutely strange, but nevertheless rare. The same evening, she is murdered in her London house. Daniel Hawthorne, a former detective with the London Metropolitan police supports the investigation. He asks the writer Anthony Horowitz to accompany his inquiry and to write a book about it. This is how the famous writer gets to see a murder investigation from the inside. Yet, the case does not really seem to lead anywhere. Is it all just a coincidence and did Mrs Cowper fall prey to a burglar who also broke into other houses of the area? When her son Damian Cowper is found stabbed in his apartment, it is obvious that his mother’s death was no bad luck. All signs lead to a car accident 10 years before in which Mrs Cowper killed an 8-year-old boy. But somehow the pieces do not really fall into place. The peculiar team of the strange ex-detective and the author will have to investigate further – until they get in mortal danger themselves.

Even after having finished reading the novel and the acknowledgements, I am not sure if this is all based on a true story or if Anthony Horowitz is just a great inventor. However, it doesn’t really matter, what matters is first of all, did I enjoy reading the novel? Yes, absolutely, it is so much fun and I hardly could put it away. And second, how was the murder case? Cleverly constructed, surprising, simply fantastic. I could stop here since it is clear that “The Word is Murder” is a must read of 2017.

The novel starts a bit surprisingly. You get Mrs Cowper walking into the undertaker’s and so on. Then, quite abruptly, there is a break and the author is starting to talk to you and you learn that you just read a chapter of a book which is to be written. So, he takes you out of the novel you were just reading into another novel about the writing of that specific book about the woman you have just encountered. This is quite a unique start, but it fits in quite well and I like surprises like this.

As summarised before, the murder case has everything you could ask for: several suspects, all with dubious behaviours and clear motives. Quite outstanding characters which give you much to puzzle over. Nevertheless, it all fits together perfectly in the end and the here again, the motivation comes quite as a surprise but is absolutely reasonable and coherent with the whole plot.

Concerning the characters, I liked the author who is not the perfect detective who knows it all, who has doubts about what he is doing, sometimes a guilt conscience and a conversational tone which makes it easy to indulge in the story. Hawthorne on the other hand is only presented through the eyes of the narrator, thus never objectively presented and definitely a bit bizarre – but I liked him nevertheless.

All in all, a humorous crime novel which additionally benefits from Horowitz’s masterly writing skills.