THE TWIST OF A KNIFE

By ANTHONY HOROWITZ Century This excellent adventure is the fourth Sherlock-and-Watsontype partnership between Anthony (the author “playing” himself) and the fiendishly clever detective Daniel Hawthorne.

This time, it’s the author who finds himself in a pickle when he’s locked up for murdering Harriet Throsby, a theatre critic with a poison pen who demolishes Anthony’s debut West End production of his new play Mindgame. It seems like an open-and-shut case because Anthony’s fingerprints are all over a dagger believed to be the murder weapon.

The trouble is the playwright has cheesed off the detective by telling him he doesn’t want to work with him anymore. Now he needs him badly. Lucky for him (and us) Hawthorne takes the case, contrives to get his sidekick out of jail and embarks on a delicious whodunnit with many suspects, many motives and many twists and turns.

The reader is plunged into the catty world of London theatre and beyond as the plot thickens and is finally resolved in a locked-room Poirotstyle climax when Hawthorne gathers the major players together to unmask the dastardly killer.

This is crime fiction and metafiction of the highest order – page-turning, witty and seriously smart. A perfect holiday read.