Close to Death is the fifth of six books in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series written by Anthony Horowitz. I’ve already reviewed the first four books, so I need not report here what has drawn me to this series which has gotten my rave comments. This book is different from the others since the two protagonists do not appear in the book until about the 30-40% mark. Rather, the author Horowitz, distinct from his semi-fictionalized writer in the novels, provides us with a lot of background about the small and elite housing area near London, Riverview Close. Close is an English term for a small and relatively insular area of homes, the word coming from the word “enclosure.”
I’ll be brief. Once again there is a murder. While there has been very little turnover of the houses in the close, one of the houses went up for sale. It was purchased by Giles Kenworthy who very quickly becomes an irritant to all of the other neighbors, and it is Giles who is murdered with a crossbow shot into his throat. Detective Hawthorne comes to the scene to solve the murder, and Horowitz is there to gather material for his next novel. The reader is provided with a great cast, any of whom had a motive to kill Kenworthy. There are artful misdirections, and there was the usual tension between the two main players.
The sixth book is entitled A Deadly Episode, and I’m in line to get it, estimated at another seven weeks although there are 47 copies in use. I’ll impatiently wait for it to become available.
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