Horowitz, author of Magpie Murders (which I enjoyed but seem to have neglected to blog about...), Foyle's War, and Midsomer Mysteries, among others, has this time inserted himself as a character. A woman visits a funeral home to plan her own funeral and is murdered the very same afternoon. Horowitz is approached by the mysterious Hawthorne, formerly of Scotland Yard, who seems to work as an outside contractor to the police on especially difficult cases. Hawthorne and Horowitz team up to solve the case and write a book, but their personalities clash and the investigation becomes tangled and dangerous.
This was a disappointment after Magpie. Hawthorne, I gather, is meant to be a Sherlock to Horowitz' Watson, but, at least in the first of what may be a series, his character just isn't developed enough to be at all interesting. He is smart, obsessively private, and...homophobic. Yes, that's distinctive, but it's hardly endearing in the way that Holmes' many quirks are. The murder story is well-plotted, with plenty of mis-direction and cliffhanging. Enjoyable but not quite up to the hype.
