Book Report - "A Line to Kill" by Anthony Horowitz
I was big on murder mystery novels a couple years back, and I have a hard time leaving a series unfinished unless I just truly hate one of the books. Hence, I decided to revisit the Hawthorne series for the third book that had since been released after I read the first two.
The one thing I can tell you is that I would be an awful detective. Up until the very end, I don’t have a clue who committed the crime. Sure, I’ll throw out theories while I’m reading. Occasionally, one of those theories does coincide with the final resolution, but nothing makes it any more special than the dozen or so theories I floated around. When the big reveal comes, I am consistently surprised. Great for the satisfaction of reading, but don’t expect me to solve any crimes for you.
Given that disclaimer, I can’t tell you how easily this mystery would have been solved by someone with a more keen eye for detail. The clues make sense when they’re finally laid out clearly and directly at the end, but I wouldn’t have made those conclusions on my own. My understanding is that a murder mystery that a moderately keen reader can solve near the beginning probably isn’t much of a mystery at all, and hence probably not a great read. If you tend to solve the mystery before it’s revealed more often than not, this book report probably isn’t applicable to you.
As for the book, I’d call it good, but not great. The names aren’t particularly memorable to me, but the voices as portrayed by the narrator Rory Kinnear did give much more unique and nuanced representations of the characters. Something about the plot felt Agatha Christie-esque, in the way that several strangers come together in an unfamiliar locale where a murder occurs, a la “And Then There Were None,” albeit with not quite so much forethought. I didn’t mind it, but I wasn’t notably interested in it either.
Hawthorne and Anthony as characters present more of the same banter and occasionally humorous exchanges. If you liked them in previous novels, you’ll still like them here. If nothing else, they carry the rest of the novel that I might otherwise have grown bored of. Besides, I needed to see the real verdict after the red herrings were cleared.
The strength of this novel (at least in its audiobook format) is probably its brevity. The entire work is just shy of 9 hours, which I finished in 6 and a half hours with a slightly faster playback speed. All of the details are on the table at roughly the halfway mark, maybe 5 hours, and the remainder is a sequence of following up leads and eliminating would-be culprits. Anything substantially longer, and I think I would’ve become detrimentally apathetic. The characters aren’t really likable or dislikable besides notable exceptions, and that isn’t enough to keep me drawn into the book.
If you’ve already read the first two books in the Hawthorne series, you definitely owe it to yourself to read the third as well. I can’t say whether this is the last book to be written about Hawthorne. The final chapter certainly sets up some tentative leads for another sequel to address, but they could just as easily be put to rest without a huge cliffhanger. If another Hawthorne book comes out, I’ll definitely give it a shot, but I also wouldn’t necessarily be hurt if that’s the end.
All in all, the book was fine. “Mid” as the cool kids say. I’m not going out of my way to recommend the Hawthorne series to everybody, but it’s a decent series to pick up if you enjoy murder mysteries.
The one thing I can tell you is that I would be an awful detective. Up until the very end, I don’t have a clue who committed the crime. Sure, I’ll throw out theories while I’m reading. Occasionally, one of those theories does coincide with the final resolution, but nothing makes it any more special than the dozen or so theories I floated around. When the big reveal comes, I am consistently surprised. Great for the satisfaction of reading, but don’t expect me to solve any crimes for you.
Given that disclaimer, I can’t tell you how easily this mystery would have been solved by someone with a more keen eye for detail. The clues make sense when they’re finally laid out clearly and directly at the end, but I wouldn’t have made those conclusions on my own. My understanding is that a murder mystery that a moderately keen reader can solve near the beginning probably isn’t much of a mystery at all, and hence probably not a great read. If you tend to solve the mystery before it’s revealed more often than not, this book report probably isn’t applicable to you.
As for the book, I’d call it good, but not great. The names aren’t particularly memorable to me, but the voices as portrayed by the narrator Rory Kinnear did give much more unique and nuanced representations of the characters. Something about the plot felt Agatha Christie-esque, in the way that several strangers come together in an unfamiliar locale where a murder occurs, a la “And Then There Were None,” albeit with not quite so much forethought. I didn’t mind it, but I wasn’t notably interested in it either.
Hawthorne and Anthony as characters present more of the same banter and occasionally humorous exchanges. If you liked them in previous novels, you’ll still like them here. If nothing else, they carry the rest of the novel that I might otherwise have grown bored of. Besides, I needed to see the real verdict after the red herrings were cleared.
The strength of this novel (at least in its audiobook format) is probably its brevity. The entire work is just shy of 9 hours, which I finished in 6 and a half hours with a slightly faster playback speed. All of the details are on the table at roughly the halfway mark, maybe 5 hours, and the remainder is a sequence of following up leads and eliminating would-be culprits. Anything substantially longer, and I think I would’ve become detrimentally apathetic. The characters aren’t really likable or dislikable besides notable exceptions, and that isn’t enough to keep me drawn into the book.
If you’ve already read the first two books in the Hawthorne series, you definitely owe it to yourself to read the third as well. I can’t say whether this is the last book to be written about Hawthorne. The final chapter certainly sets up some tentative leads for another sequel to address, but they could just as easily be put to rest without a huge cliffhanger. If another Hawthorne book comes out, I’ll definitely give it a shot, but I also wouldn’t necessarily be hurt if that’s the end.
All in all, the book was fine. “Mid” as the cool kids say. I’m not going out of my way to recommend the Hawthorne series to everybody, but it’s a decent series to pick up if you enjoy murder mysteries.
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