Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Word Is Murder

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

14 reviews

natashaball's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Excellent premise - the author putting himself in a fictional murder story, even in the acknowledgments. A few unexpected twists and turns, and the ones I thought would happen never did, which was great! Definitely recommend.

Content Warnings

leahthebooklover's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

I chose this book because it was "pressed" upon me by a podcast I recently started listening to called "Currently Reading" (great podcast, but it's seriously adding to the length of my tbr pile). The premise intrigued me. Anthony Horowitz is a prolific author and screenwriter, and in this book (the first of a series of at least 10 intended books, 4 of which have been published to date) he himself is a major character. He is approached by an enigmatic and unlikeable detective named Daniel Hawthorne who is a police consultant and is working on a uniquely puzzling murder. A middle aged woman goes to a funeral home to make her own funeral arrangements. Six hours later she is strangled to death in her own apartment. Her body isn't discovered until two days later when the housekeeper arrives for work. Hawthorne is called in to consult, and it's at this point, before much actual investigation has begun, that he approaches Horowitz with an unusual proposal. He wants Horowitz to accompany him as he investigates, and then write a book based on the case. The book blurs the line between fact and fiction. The facts about Horowitz himself that are inserted in the book are true enough - the previous books he has written and so on - but the case itself, the character of Hawthorne and the rest of the victims, suspects, and events described, are all fictional. Hawthorne has been described as a "modern day Sherlock Holmes" while Horowitz is his Watson counterpart. It's a bit of a stretch, but not totally unrealistic, especially considering that in real life, Horowitz has been authorized by the Arthur Conan Doyle estate to write new Sherlock Holmes mysteries (see "House of Silk" and "Moriarty"). In creating the genre blending Daniel Hawthorne series, Horowitz is proving again what a versatile writer he is. For sensitive readers, this is a murder mystery, so there are some graphic descriptions of death. Also, the character of Hawthorne (who I previously described as unlikeable) is shown to be prominently homophobic. Horowitz addresses his objection to this aspect of Hawthorne's personality, even going so far as wondering if he can continue working with him, but by that time he's so invested in trying to "one-up" Hawthorne and solve the case himself that he continues on (of course he does, or else there wouldn't be a book). The matter is not addressed again in this book, perhaps it will be dealt with in later books in the series. I certainly hope so, because otherwise I find it's inclusion to be pointless and offensive. Part memoir, part murder mystery, written like a true crime story, this is a series with a few problems and a fair amount of promise. I'm going to give the next book in the series ("The Sentence is Death") a try fairly soon.

Content Warnings

melshoo's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

zlizzyv's review against another edition

Go to review page

mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

It was a slow start and throughout the book it felt like Horowitz was self promoting. At first it was exciting to realize he was talking about himself, referencing books I had read before, but it soon became too much. It felt like every chapter he mentioned one of his works, and it didn’t add to the plot in any meaningful way. I didn’t get fully hooked on the storyline until halfway in, partially because of this.

Content Warnings

alisonvh's review

Go to review page

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

A solid homage to Holmes and Watson, especially if Holmes had been a manipulative prick.

Content Warnings

not_another_ana's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

4/5

This was something I would learn about Hawthorne. He was someone who was only fully alive when he was working a case. He needed there to have been a murder or some other violent crime. It was his entire raison d'être - another posh phrase which I am sure he would have hated.

A woman walks into a funeral parlour and arranges her own funeral. Hours later she's been murdered. Coincidence or something more sinister is afoot? In comes our protagonist, former detective Daniel Hawthorne, as a consultant on the case. And like any good Sherlockesque hero he needs a Watson to record his exploits. Here is where the interesting bit that caught my eye comes in: the narrator is the actual author of the book, Anthony Horowitz.

This was a fun romp that reminded me of classic whodunnits. The mystery was intriguing and not easy to solve, though I will say that it could have been a bit more grounded in reality. Horowitz's prose makes this a page turner that draws you in. I had a lot of fun reading this and will definitely be picking up the others in the series.

My favorite part of the whole book was the character of Hawthorne. What if the protagonist was similar to say a BBC Sherlock detective or a loose cannon? Well, he would be fucking unbearable. And that worked here, with his outrageousness behavior giving this tale something more interesting than just the crime. He felt very fleshed out and I liked that the book didn't shy away from his faults, like his perceived homophobia and his callousness towards others.

What can be a bit hit of miss is the self insert of Horowitz. There were aspects of it that I enjoyed and some that made me loose my immersion in the plot. It can feel, at times, like a lot of self promotion of his works but it also gives us hilarious scenes like when Hawthorne crashes his meeting with Spielberg and Peter Jackson.

Content Warnings

frantically's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging mysterious fast-paced

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

2.5

This feels like a book written by a posh, white, straight man for other posh, white, straight men who want to feel better about being posh, white and straight — after all, at least they're not homophobic too (they just want to understand the homophobes' reason).

Content Warnings