The second book in Horowitz’s series featuring taciturn and egotistical retired detective, Hawthorne, The Sentence is Death, is absurdly excellent.
The story opens with divorce lawyer Richard Pryce being brutally killed with a bottle of expensive wine and the numerals 182 being painted on the wall above the body. Called into aid the investigation being undertaken by an unpleasant and bullying female detective, Hawthorne insists Horowitz accompany him so he might add this murder to the books the author is writing about him. For that’s the marvellous premise of these clever, humorous and beautifully plotted books: Hawthorne has persuaded an unwilling (or at least, against his better judgement) Horowitz to write what will be essentially biographical novels about Hawthorne, featuring his skills as a detective and the cases he solves. As a consequence, the author is a character in his own novel, presenting himself as a rather bumbling Watson-style character to Hawthorne’s Sherlock, becoming a very appropriate foil for the detective’s undoubted and oft infuriating brilliance.
Suspects present themselves with alarming frequency in this case as not only Richard’s present and high-profile legal cases leave a trail of clues as to the culprit, but the past also proves fertile ground. Hawthorne and Horowitz have to pull out all stops and make, not only leaps of imagination but find facts to uncover the killer.
Self-deprecating, frustrated and torn between professional curiosity and fury at the way he’s treated by Hawthorne and other members of the constabulary, Horowitz waivers between regretting his decision to write about Hawthorne and wanting to quit. Fortunately, he persists. This case has him (and consequently, the reader) hooked. Laden with references to real writers, actors and thinly veiled swipes and praise for others, as well as his own family and work Horowitz genuinely undertakes (such as writing the television series, Foyle’s War), increases the frisson the novel already creates.
A clever, easy read that already has me
looking forward to the next installment.
Yet another sensational instalment in a Scottish crime series that even though it started fabulously, just keep getting better and better. In this latest “episode” DI Logan McRae and his team of Tufty, Rennie and the best written female detective in any series (alternately infuriating, funny, clever and outrageous), DS Roberta Steele, confront a shocking truth: someone they thought they’d buried and farewelled with mixed feelings is resurrected albeit, briefly. Nevertheless, the short return sets off a chain of events that lead Logan and his colleagues to confront a dreadful truth: someone is selling children at auction. There is nothing else that can explain the disappearance of young boys and girls from the local area nor the fact that no evidence or trail is ever discovered, leaving behind misery and despair – and not just for the parents.
What a magnificent novel this is – the fact it’s a debut work makes it even more astonishing. It is at once, accomplished, tightly plotted, with beautifully crafted characters and a terrific setting – Galway, Ireland.
ne early 2018). In this novel, DCI Ryan investigates the case of a body at the bottom of a reservoir. Found by a tourist doing a diving course, its discovery is timed with arrival of Ryan’s wife, Anna, and a mini-bus-load of her masters’ students engaged in a history study of the region. Since the body has been there at least 30 years and this appears to be a cold case, Ryan reassures Anna it’s OK to continue with her history trip. Only, when more bodies start turning up, both Ryan and Anna come to deeply regret their initial decision she remain.
The Girl in the Ice is the first crime novel for Robert Bryndza, an author better known for his frothy romantic comedies and it’s a doozy. Opening with the gruesome murder of a young, privileged and rich society girl, a murder that will form the focus of the rest of the narrative, the novel takes off at a cracking pace that doesn’t relent until the past page.
