Reviews

If you are familiar with Anthony Horowitz, I understand why The Word is Murder might work for you. Your literary hero! The brain behind Alex Ryder (Rider?) talking about his (albeit) fictional life! Solving crime! Evading murder! Huzzah! One of the ways to look at this is, wow, gosh, the bravery and brilliance of an author deciding fuck the fourth wall; hello audience! It’s me and my life and perspectives!

However, by fictionalizing oneself, as the author, also included are excuses for all the details we might otherwise crucify a story or character: a heroic main character who is apparently homophobic? And not even in the 21st century version of homophobia that’s based on misguided beliefs but on the 20th century version that thinks gay people are pedophiles? Sir. And another thing: we might even be able to overlook this (maybe) if it weren’t followed with the fictionalized Horowitz admitting that he could never make a protagonist homophobic, but since he has no choice since this is his real life (it isn’t), what can he do? And if it were up to him, he’d never write a main character who’s a straight white man, but he has no choice, does he? If we were really, really committed to giving the benefit of the doubt, it might be fair to suggest this is dark humor, or at least humor that stems from the corner of the internet that we pretend is never, ever funny in any circumstance.

My issue is: isn’t this a little vain? Isn’t this a little, how do you say, unbelievably egotistical? We don’t meet a Horowitz who is bumbling and struggling and really likable. No, we meet a Horowitz who has lunch with Steven Spielberg (even if it goes poorly), never talks to his wife or sons despite going on and on about how we never really meet Hawthorne (by this I mean, we never meet either of them), and talks all about how this experience is so different than all the TV shows and movies he’s worked on. Then he suggests that he has no control over his character choice because, by god, it’s his real life! Am I the only one thinking that if we are subjected to such vanity we can identify it as the convenient means by which all kinds of distasteful choices are excused?

Finally, and here are the spoilers, Team, I am so uninterested in the trope where the murderer is someone we’ve met who is secretly someone else we don’t even hear about until the end. Surprise! I’m not the gardener! I’m the baker’s nephew! Remember? The one from the bakery where the victim took a shit on the entryway floor on the day the health inspector was there and caused the whole place to be shut down forever! That was my uncle’s dream! Also no, we’ve never met until right now nor heard this story even one time before!

God, I could give a fuck. (And by that I mean yes I could give a fuck and no I absolutely will not). This isn’t a good trope. This isn’t a good tale. Would it be fascinating in a true crime piece? Absolutely. But this is fiction. Weave something better. The story isn’t good if you just smack a big ol’ GOTCHA at the end. I literally don’t care. Because if that’s the case, that we would never have known until the end (and tbh, we knew the perpetrator before then) then why the hell did I spend so much time reading about all the other clues? I won’t, going forward.

cozy_gh0st's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

buttercupita's review against another edition

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4.0

This is the first book I've managed to finish in a while (event packed June leads to short attention span.) Fun mystery made interesting by Horowitz' decision to cast himself as a character.