A Line To Kill

When Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, are invited to an exclusive literary festival on Alderney, an idyllic island off the south coast of England, they don’t expect to find themselves in the middle of murder investigation—or to be trapped with a cold-blooded killer in a remote place with a murky, haunted past.

Arriving on Alderney, Hawthorne and Horowitz soon meet the festival’s other guests—an eccentric gathering that includes a bestselling children’s author, a French poet, a TV chef turned cookbook author, a blind psychic, and a war historian—along with a group of ornery locals embroiled in an escalating feud over a disruptive power line.

When a local grandee is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Hawthorne and Horowitz become embroiled in the case. The island is locked down, no one is allowed on or off, and it soon becomes horribly clear that a murderer lurks in their midst. But who?

Both a brilliant satire on the world of books and writers and an immensely enjoyable locked-room mystery, A Line to Kill is a triumph—a riddle of a story full of brilliant misdirection, beautifully set-out clues, and diabolically clever denouements.

After loving the first two books in this series, I was eager to read this one, especially when I saw that it would place Horowitz and Hawthorne on a small island for a literary festival. It sounded like a perfect setting for another murder mystery by this interesting duo, and it didn’t let me down!

Taking Hawthorne and Horowitz out of the city and placing them on the small island of Alderney was a fun twist to the series. Once again, while the mystery was entertaining to read about, the backdrop of the relationship between the author and the detective is what has really grabbed my attention about this series. Like Horowitz, I want to know more about Hawthorne and his past, and I certainly did learn a lot in this book!

I have so enjoyed this series and I picked up the next book right away!