I'd ay it's a bit weaker than previous books, but still deliciously good :) ( )

Another pure mystery, though that doesn't become apparent until nearly a quarter or the way through. I enjoyed more personal revelations from the detective, though the author continues to be bumbling. ( )

Just like the previous books, The Word Is Murder and The Sentence Is Death, this is a modern version of a classic detective story. I went in knowing what to expect, got exactly what I expected :)... and flew through the book in one day. "A Line to Kill" felt (imho) like a darker tale - less postmodernism and more wickedness than other books in the series.
I enjoyed watching this unlikely pair of sleuths, Hawthorne and Horowitz, making their way through yet another investigation. There are still mysteries concerning Hawthorne that have not been resolved, are they being saved for the fourth book? ( )

A bit too meta for me…
Anthony Horowitz crafts a closed room mystery set on an island (one that sounds rather charming and makes me want to visit) involving a book festival, plots for financial windfalls, and gambling, but it isn’t persuasive. He is writing as himself, the writer, working with a fictional detective to solve the mystery. There are almost too many reasons for the victims to be murdered and the red herrings are literally flying, but the final resolution is unsatisfying. I don’t understand the detective’s nature- he’s mysterious and cranky and unlikeable, doing a lot of the detective stuff in the background despite a lack of support for same. It just seems too self-referential, too. Makes me dislike the author.
The writing is, of course, excellent, and the story flows along, just as you’d expect from this best-selling author, but the characters are weak and too easy to figure out. And I think it is a mistake to put himself into the story- it’s cheesy and a bit lazy.
Horowitz is known for his unusual mysteries (Magpie murders, for ex) and I was fully hoping to enjoy this one, but for me it’s more like a standard cozy. All that’s missing is the cat to solve things. ( )

3rd in the series, where Hawthorne's nemesis meets his end. Though that is not the case to be solved in this story. Hawthorne and Horowitz go to a little known book festival on an island off the east coast of England in order to promote the first book in this series, which has yet to be released in this story's timeline.
There are a number of interesting characters attending the book festival, not all are who they seem to be. Then the multimillionaire financier of the event is found murdered.
And the games begin.... ( )