Clever murder on island…literary conference; a bit over complex!!!! But an ok read, ( )

Mayhem at a writer's conference ( )

In "A Line to Kill" Anthony Horowitz once again joins forces with a private detective, Daniel Hawthorne, formerly a DI in London's Scotland Yard. The premise is that Horowitz, who narrates with wry humor, has contracted to write books about Hawthorne, a sleuth with uncanny powers of deduction. Much to Anthony's consternation, he is stuck playing the role of Watson to Hawthorne's Sherlock Holmes. Although Horowitz has quite a few bestsellers to his credit, he resents Hawthorne for outshining him whenever they appear in public. The two men attend a literary festival in Alderney, one of the Channel Islands, and the attendees hang on Hawthorne's every word, leaving Anthony's to wonder why he bothered to show up at all. Hawthorne's reputation is well-deserved, thanks to his ability to read a crime scene, pick up on the significance of minor clues, and see through accomplished liars who try to outwit him. Much to Anthony's annoyance, Daniel is a cipher, who refuses to reveal complete details about his own murky past.

When a prominent citizen is brutally slain, Deputy Chief Officer Jonathan Torode and his team from the Guernsey Crime Services are sent to investigate, since Alderney is too tiny to have its own police force. Alas, Torode is lazy and incompetent, and he hires Hawthorne to be his paid consultant. Everyone at the literary festival is a potential suspect, including the sponsor, guests, and members of the staff. Horowitz's characters are distinctive, quirky, and amusingly portrayed, and the moody, isolated, and scenic Alderney serves as an evocative backdrop to the proceedings.

Horowitz has fun satirizing a self-proclaimed blind psychic; a television chef and cookbook author who gleefully promotes unhealthful foods; and a lecherous and wealthy businessman and his promiscuous wife. Also on hand are a nasty ex-convict, a war historian, a children's book author, and a group of activists who oppose the proposed construction of a power line that could harm mar their island's beauty and, even more disturbing, damage the graves of those killed by Nazi occupiers during World War II. The prose is lucid, stylish, and engaging, and there are a host of red herrings that keep us guessing until the big reveal. Hawthorne's casual manner when he announces the solution gives Anthony, who was clueless, a major inferiority complex. This fast-paced mystery is an amusing, literate, and a thoroughly entertaining work of metafiction. ( )

As ever this was very readable and well-plotted. Here the setting is a literary festival on Alderney, where Hawthorne proves much more popular than the actual writer half of their duo. The solutions, both to the murders and to the lesser crimes committed by the other festival speakers, were clever and, although I picked up some of the clues I missed lots of others. ( )

When Detective 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 a 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, TV chef turned cookbook author, blind psychic, and a war historian-along with a group of ornery locals embroiled in a feud over a disruptive power line.
When a local grandee is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Hawthorne and Horowitz become embroiled in the case. ( )