“Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong, and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.
It is the perfect idyll, until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, gaggle of shrieking children, and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and quickly offend every last one of the neighbors.
When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator they can call to solve the case.
Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?”
The Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery series is one of my first introductions to the mystery genre, and I doubt I could have picked a better one. Horowitz goes full-on meta with these books, making himself the main character working to write the book and letting the readers watch the process. This particular book is the fifth in the series, so if you haven’t read the others, go start with The Word is Murder and thank me later.
While I definitely enjoy the format of the novels in this series–Horowitz following Detective Hawthorne around getting inspiration to write a book about the two of them solving the crime–I did have to wonder how the author was going to keep it fresh, and this book answers that question. Instead of working with Hawthorne, Horowitz instead goes off on his own to research the detective’s first murder case for a new novel. The book goes back and forth between showing the reader what happened with that first case, and Horowitz searching out answers about Hawthorne’s past. Given that Hawthorne is a murky character throughout this series, giving the reader new crumbs of info is a great way to keep us interested.
Part of the appeal of this series is the sheer novelty of the format. I mean, the author is his own main character? We’re watching the process of creating that book that we’re reading? Who thinks of these things? I adore novels–that’s pretty obvious–but many stories fall into broad trends. And once a trend gets hot, everybody jumps onto the bandwagon. Finding a trend that you like is great, and often it’s fun to really dive into a trend and see the variations that authors cook up, but finding something really unique can be a bit tricky. I haven’t seen anything even remotely like this series, and I appreciate how different this one is.
One of the perks of being a bookseller is getting the opportunity to read books in advance of their publication date. This series gets the highest compliment I can give: the second I see anything about these characters pop up, I practically fall all over myself to download it, and it immediately jumps to the head of my “to be read” pile. I have loved all of the book in this series, and Close to Death is no exception.
