Reviews with content warning for Death - The Sentence Is Death

Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Sentence Is Death by Anthony Horowitz

10 reviews

flissjoy33's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This was amazing. Was I confused at times because I started with the second in the series? Sometimes. However it was page-turning and scary, and its so cool that Anthony Horowitz got caught up in murder investigations by accident. Nothing else has been written like (as far as I know). Totally recommend.

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mlottermoser's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

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not_another_ana's review against another edition

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adventurous 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? It's complicated

3.25

From my experience of Hawthorne, I knew he had a way of firing off seemingly irrelevant observations. He wasn't being deliberately offensive. It was just that offensive was his default mode.

Hawthorne and Horowitz are back and ready to solve a murder! When a cutthroat divorce lawyer is brutally murdered, and a mysterious message left in the crime scene, it's up to private investigator Daniel Hawthorne to get to the bottom of the case. Of course following along for the ride is Anthony Horowitz, the real life author's failsona and Hawthorne's biographer, who is trying to figure out a different mystery, who really is Hawthorne? With a variety of suspects, who all had motives and even opportunity, and a suspicious incident in the victim's past this won't be an easy case to crack.

The second book of this funky series was a good solid read, but I did enjoy the first one far more. Things I loved in this one: Hawthorne continues to be a horrid human being that you can't help but be drawn into. His character is great, incredibly human to the point of being disgusting. I thought the pacing was good enough and I enjoyed most of the investigation.

Special mention to the caving incident, way to give me a new fear. What a horrible way to die! I also really liked the description of the investigation into the suicide and how that whole department works, solid stuff.

However, the murder mystery in this one wasn't as enjoyable. It was fine, but the misdirection became a bit too obvious at points. I solved it with a quarter of the book to go, so it definitely kept me guessing, but the ending wasn't so satisfying.

My biggest gripe here is how little we saw the actual murderer, for me that gave it away a bit. What the numbers actually meant was kinda meh, though I do think the motive made a lot of sense.

The two new cop characters were too cartoonish to me, they could have been toned down a bit. While it was interesting to see Hawthorne's private life a bit more there was too much set up into a future reveal about his past that was left hanging by the end of this book, I could have done with a morsel of truth.

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atamano's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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scherbs's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

3.5

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mushroom_princess's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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emilygv's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

[review to be edited]

Chapter 21 bumped up my rating. To say I let out a demonic gargoyle screech would be an understatement.

I found the author-insert more enjoyable this time around, and was happy getting to explore more of the dynamic between the two leads.

Horowitz has a clever way of hiding essential clues in plain sight and, like Anthony, I enjoy trying to figure out the mystery as it unfolds. There was a sentence early on along the lines of "I'd find out that by this point I'd already missed 3 clues and misconstrued 2 others" that I thought was brilliantly placed.

This book got me out of my semi-depressive reading slump and I thoroughly enjoyed trying to speed through the ending before I left for work (couldn't leave the mystery unsolved, after all).

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chloeloi's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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hazelgirl21's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-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

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possiblyeve's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

a solid murder mystery - what i really enjoyed was Horowitz’s narration. i loved the narration on his book ‘Magpie Murders’, where you can’t really tell what’s the character speaking and what is Horowitz’s actual experience. i still can’t tell if this is 100% fiction, and i really enjoyed reading it.

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