The story begins with Horowitz attempting to sever the book writing relationship with Hawthorne. Shortly thereafter, Horowitz becomes the suspect when a critic from the opening night of his play is found murdered the morning after she wrote a scathing review of the play. Horowitz calls upon Hawthorne to help him out of the mess.

With nods to the mystery writing skills of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, the author casts a fictional version of himself as a Watson and Hawthorne as the master sleuth with a mysterious past. There is humor sprinkled through out in the form of self deprecation and double meaning.
A little more is revealed about Hawthorne's past when Horowitz meets the mysterious "sort of half brother" while hiding from the police in Hawthorne's flat.

The ending suggests there will be future additions to this series. ( )

A writer describes his own fear when accused of murder. As the story developed I remained unsure if in the end he would indeed be the killer. I didn’t figure out who the killer was but guessed it might have been the other boy involved in the death by prank of a teacher at a boarding school. Echos of Agatha Christie with a list of suspects and a clever detective explaining the solution on stage at the end of the book. ( )

The Twist Of A Knife (2022) by Anthony Horowitz. This is the fourth book in the Detective Hawthorne/writer Horowitz mystery series. Anthony Horowitz has once again placed his fictional writer with the same name in the center of a murder investigation. But this time he has said good-bye to his frustrating, but brilliant, detective partner Hawthorne. Which is a shame as the police come by just a day or two later to arrest Horowitz on suspicion of murder.
The book’s character Horowitz wrote a mystery play and, after months in the hinterlands, it has finally arrived in London. The small cast of three, the theater agent and his assistant and Horowitz have their fame and, in some cases, fortune, riding on the critic’s reviews of opening night. The play goes well but the first published review dumps all over the play, cast and writer. At the premier’s after party the review is the heated topic that spoils the mood of all involved.
The critic, hated by so many both in and out of the theater trade, is found dead, stabbed by an ornamental dagger that was handed out to the cast and crew at the party. The guilty dagger had Horowitz’s fingerprints on the handle.
With one phone call between himself and total doom, Horowitz calls Hawthorne. But Hawthorne who doesn’t want to play ball after the rejection he received a few days earlier.
It is nothing to say that Hawthorne comes around, on his own terms, and helps pull his ex-partner out of trouble and together they solve the case.
The writing is smooth with a good sense of humor as always, The author has once again down-played the fictional writer’s abilities in solving crimes. The crime itself is fairly ingenious in its simplicity, but also baffling in its brilliance. Like the works that precede this effort, be they books or television series/scripts, the author brings a level of humanity to his work that is lacking in the work of so many others. The plight of the author’s characters manages to touch the reader/watcher, striking a note of commonality.
Also this acts as the first book in what I’m hoping is a new trilogy. Fingers crossed. ( )

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader as part of a Quick Takes Catch-up post, emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness.
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Until I heard Horowitz on a podcast talking about this book, I wasn’t sure if I was going to bother with the book—but he piqued my interest. I’m glad he did—he’s really good at keeping this series from falling into a formula, and bringing Hawthorne into this case to get Horowitz out of trouble was a nice twist (but something he can’t repeat).

I didn’t buy—at all—the way Horowitz didn’t involve his wife in his situation—or how she reacted. The way the other detectives focused on Horowitz and didn’t really listen to him seemed less-than-credible, too—but not as much.

Still, this was a fun listen—Kinnear’s a great narrator—and this mystery was clever. It was a good time—I know you’ll find more enthusiastic recommendations from several other people, and you should probably take their advice. The best I can do is that this book probably led me to get the next one. ( )

The books in this series are always intricately plotted with loads of characters, red herrings, and humor but this entry drags a bit more than the others. ( )