It is interesting how discussing a book with a book club group can change your opinion of it. I was very enthusiastic about The Word Is Murder when I began reading it, though I had misgivings about the portrayal of one of the major characters, Hawthorne, the crime-solving detective, as a homophobe. For me, that's a major flaw in a character's (a person's) personality. The more we discussed it, and the more I considered it, the more it disturbed and offended me, and I don't understand why the author gave Hawthorne that characteristic, since he doesn't seem to take it anywhere. Hence, I downgraded my opinion from "4 Stars" to "3 Stars" on my Goodreads page.
The author, Anthony Horowitz, is himself the other main character and narrator, who relates the story of the crimes involved from his perspective. This is an unusual technique, but I found it clever, and amusing. Not all of the book clubbers agreed, but I'll keep my opinion intact.
The plotting is excellent, and Horowitz keeps the reader guessing almost until the very end. I may or may not read the next book in this series, if only to find out more about the mystery of Hawthorne's homophobia, and if Horowitz manages to change his mind. The Word Is Murder is the fourth of these novels.
Horowitz, a British author, was previously unknown to me, but it turns out that he has had a prolific and successful career in children's and young adult fiction, as well as adult fiction. He is also well known as the television writer of "Foyle's War" (which has run on Netflix) and "Midsomer Murders" which has run on PBS, though I have never watched it. It might be work a look...
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