Anthony Horowitz is a reasonably well-known writer. He’s written Sherlock Holmes stories (with the express approval of Conan Doyle’s descendants, mind you). He’s written episodes of Midsomer Murders – the early ones, before the thing went haywire and we began to wonder why this quaint English district had such a high homicide rate. He’s doing well for himself. Therefore, when the boorish Daniel Hawthorne approaches him and asks him to collaborate on a novel, he is inclined to turn him down. Yet somehow, Hawthorne – a disgraced Met detective now working as a consultant for the police – fascinates him, and he is drawn into the case involving the murder of Diana Cowper, a wealthy socialite. The odd twist? Cowper walked into a funeral home to arrange her own future and was killed less than twelve hours later.
The entire thing is positively Holmesian, with Horowitz as the hapless and inexperienced Watson, there to ask the questions we as the audience cannot ask. Hawthorne, meanwhile, is the Sherlock Holmes, with an incredible eye for detail, a barrage of experience, and a degree of social clumsiness that somehow never seems to backfire. The idea of the author as a character is a delightful one, particularly because Horowitz doesn’t portray himself as a genius. I mean, he touts his own horn often enough, but as a detective he clearly has a lot to learn. I have a soft spot for this kind of postmodernist foible.
The central mystery is fairly well executed and thought out; it’s a well-crafted puzzle, not quite up there with Conan Doyle, but Horowitz makes a fair stab at it. It’s also rather twee, which really isn’t my preferred genre, but I can see why it appeals to people. I’m not sure if I’m hitting a reading rut – June, for teachers, is a hellish month – or whether this book just wasn’t for me, but I liked it less than I hoped it would. The tone was a little off and the characters never appealed to me as much as I thought they would. Nevertheless, it’s a solid effort. It’ll take me a while but I’ll probably pick up the next volume.