The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz knew with certainty from early childhood that he wanted to be a writer for whom millions of devoted fans worldwide should give thanks. Shortly after graduating from the University of York with dual degrees in English and art history, his first book, The Sinister Secret of Frederick K Bower, a children’s adventure tale, was published. He had not yet reached his 23rd birthday.
Since then, he has written over 70 books for children, young adults and adults in multiple genres including mystery, suspense, horror and fantasy. His most successful books have been the best-selling Alex Rider thriller series featuring a 14-year-old teenage spy recruited into MI6.
This prolific author has created and written numerous television series, films and plays and is also a well-known journalist who has won many awards for his work. He was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) for his services to literature.
In 2018, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and named in the 2022 New Year’s Honors List as CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire). To quote Lewis Carroll, it is, indeed, a “frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” when this imaginative favorite author publishes a new book!
THE AUTHOR STARS AS THE NARRATOR
The Twist of a Knife (Harper) is a refreshingly clever and highly entertaining fourth novel in the Hathaway/Horowitz series. It is a grand combination of an intricate murder mystery filled with comedic overtones, literary allusions and insights into the publishing industry.
In a unique twist, the primary character is the real-life storyteller serving as a reluctant and rather inept sidekick to the fictional Daniel Hawthorne; an ex-Detective Inspector turned private investigator. Although summarily terminated from the force for inappropriate treatment of a prisoner, he is still unofficially hired to assist in solving difficult police cases.
The enigmatic Hawthorne is intensely private and so brusque that Horowitz is not certain he even likes him but has agreed not only to spend time working with him, but also to splitting royalties from the books he alone writes. This unlikely pair was introduced in The Word is Murder.
The premise of these mysteries is that Anthony Horowitz was contracted by his publisher to silently observe and shadow Hawthorne at work and write about his life, methods and investigations.
His publisher had obligated him to three books in cooperation with this private eye. The Sentence is Death was the second, followed by A Line to Kill which were sheer delights. In The Twist of a Knife, these two are referenced as completed manuscripts not yet released for publication. He is more than ready to resume his writing life without Hawthorne to shadow.
However, despite initial objections to the project by Horowitz’s agent, Hilda Sharpe, the normally taciturn Hawthorne has won her confidence. Not only has she signed him on as a client but is now encouraging additional books. This baffles our hero who had already informed Hawthorne their deal was complete. (This agent is also fictional. Her given name may well be a nod to a favorite Foyle’s War character named Hilda Pierce.)
NEGATIVE REVIEW TAKES A DARK TURN
Horowitz has already moved on. He is engrossed in final preparations for the prestigious Vaudeville Theatre in London’s West End opening of his new play, Mindgame, a complex, twisted psychological comedy thriller (possibly beyond the ken of an average audience). Concurrently, he is working on Moonflower Murders, a follow-up to Magpie Murders.
Mindgame is intended to be a breakthrough, long-running production with an excellent, small cast of three actors, an experienced but jinxed director, Ewan Lloyd, an anxious, penurious producer, Ahmet Yurdakal, and his protective general assistant, Maureen Bates. The situation is already fraught with tension and resentments.
The lead actor Jordan Williams has a bit of a drink problem and desperately needs a hit production. Sky, the young woman playing Nurse Plimpton is RADA trained and talented but as the diva daughter of a wealthy rock star is accustomed to privileged treatment. Tirian, the juvenile lead, has a raw and striking presence but is insecure about his abilities and lack of both a formal education and drama school training. However, he is liable to abandon the production and depart for Paris for a promised meaty role in a major film.
Let the play begin! It is a theater tradition that a good producer will give each member of the cast and crew a gift as a lasting memento of the play. Ahmet merely recycled cheaply made but deadly sharp, bejeweled daggers left from his last production of MacBeth, staged in a Scottish Castle. The one gifted to playwright Anthony Horowitz has a wobbly medallion.
Opening night brought a full house including family, friends and the critics from all the major media outlets. Among them is the Sunday Times critic, Harriet Throsby, who is mean-spirited, vindictive and notorious for savaging virtually all shows.
She reputedly begins to write her reviews during the interval (intermission) and finishes in time to crash the opening night party as it is her custom to dampen those festivities. She is accompanied to Mindgame by her lovely and long-suffering adult daughter Olivia.
Not long after she has disheartened the celebrants and departed, an advance copy of her review is leaked to the assembled guests. It was so scathing that closing night might well ensue immediately. One wonders how this unbearably loathsome woman, detested by all including her husband and child, has managed to get and keep her job with the newspaper.
It is not altogether surprising when she is found, in her home, stabbed to death with a dagger. This blood-stained Scottish dirk is none other than the one presented to Anthony Horowitz.
COUNTDOWN TO FIND THE KILLER
The author is thrown to the wolves when he is accused of murder. Instead of ending his working relationship with Hawthorne, he must rely on this maverick to identify the real killer in order to avoid a career-crippling mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. He gloomily conjectures the public might not purchase children’s books written by a convicted murderer.
Horowitz is in a jam without an alibi. He didn’t want to disturb his sleeping wife, Jill Green, when he returned home late from the cast party and she left for work early without seeing him. Evidence is stacked against him.
Providing the ultimate indignity, Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw gleefully arrives on his doorstep to arrest him and take him to a prison cell. Hathaway and Horowitz unfortunately embarrassed her in The Sentence is Death and she would love to see him rot in jail.
Would a bad review be sufficient motive for murder or is Anthony Horowitz being framed? Everyone seems to think he did it; even his wife questions him. Freed on temporary bail, Horowitz and detective Hathaway have 48 hours to find the real killer.
A CLEVER APPROACH TO COZY MYSTERY
Anthony Horowitz is the protagonist and the sort of first person narrator who delivers the story to the reader in an intimate, conversational style akin to an actor breaking the fourth wall by speaking directly to the audience. It quite effectively serves to draw the reader into the action as a participant rather than mere observer.
He has a unique and quite clever way of combining fact and fiction, mixing up time lines and setting the plot in the present. For example: Mindgame actually is one of his occasionally performed plays, staged first in England in 1999 for a short run and revived off-Broadway in 2008 with Keith Carradine in the lead.
The Twist of a Knife is another brilliant addition to Anthony Horowitz’s body of work. The Hathaway and Horowitz mystery series are highly entertaining and written for those who prefer intelligence and surprises to graphic brutality laced with repetitive profanity and without the trite banality of some of the formulaic cozies.
They are a perfect example of how an almost 200-year-old genre can be kept dewy fresh and alive in a manner so compelling you don’t want it ever to come to an end. As the still hungry Oliver Twist says to the master of the workhouse, “Please sir, I want some more.”
