Another month, another book. Have you ever read a book where the main character is an author writing a true crime novel? “The Word is Murder” is exactly that.
A woman pays a visit to the undertaker to plan her own funeral. Six hours later, she dies. She is killed in her own home. But who could have committed such a heinous crime? There’s only one man for this job, Daniel Hawthorne, a disgraced detective. Hawthorne is unconventional, in your face, and does not care if anything he says insults you. But one thing is for sure, he is one of the best detectives England has ever seen. The author, Anthony Horowitz, puts an innovative twist on the genre of murder mystery by writing himself into the story as Hawthorne’s sidekick. In the book Hawthorne comes to Horowitz to ask him to write about his life, since Horowitz is already a well published author. These two characters are far from likely to have ever become partners, but as fate would have it, they go on an incredible journey to solve this gruesome crime.
Anthony Horowitz writes this story in such detail, as if the reader was with both Horowitz and Hawthorne. Although detail is important for any good story, it did drag on from time to time in this book. I found it to be a good plot but unnecessarily lengthy. Some chapters were definitely less significant than others. As for the characters, Hawthorne and Horowitz share a more modern day ‘Sherlock and Watson’ relationship. But of course, not as iconic as the original duo.
The plot of “The Word is Murder” is definitely interesting but the rambling of insignificant detail definitely made finishing the book a bit of a drag. Horowitz does take too long revealing how the woman was murdered. It would have been much more engaging if he had cut out some of the insignificant detail. I’m not sure if this how Horowitz typically writes, since this is the first book I’ve read by him, but I am not opposed to trying some of his other work. One book cannot possibly define the entirety of an author’s work.
Until Next Time!
-Suman Kang
Suman Kang 