I’ve not read any of the others in this series so wasn’t sure what to expect. It took me a while to get used to Anthony Horowitz writing about himself working with an ex detective, Hawthorne. I wasn’t sure what was fact and what was fiction! It was still a very enjoyable read though once I worked out what was happening!

I am so glad that Horowitz, a fine author, conceived the idea of the Hawthorne-Horowitz novels, as the three ones published to date have all been excellent. It takes a lot to build such a strong metafiction brand and embed a ‘cosy crime’ mystery in it, but Horowitz does it with aplomb. This book, the fourth in the series, takes us to the Strand Theatre in London, and the opening night of fictional Horowitz’s play entitled ‘Mindgames’. When a reviled theatre critic is stabbed, suspicion falls on the fictional author (and narrator) Horowitz. Can he count on the help of the enigmatic and distant Hawthorne in his hour of need? What will we find out about the other suspects and their backstories? There are ‘mindgames’ aplenty in this book and I enjoyed gradually finding out how the plot was constructed and savouring the atmosphere of fictional London’s theatreland. If you have not yet read any of the novels in this series, give this one a try – you will not be disappointed! Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the free ARC I received to read this novel and produce this honest and unbiased review.

The Twist of a Knife brings a new twist to the Hawthorne - Horowitz reluctant partnership. Horowitz's new play Mindgame is savaged by Harriet Throsby, a vicious theatre critic who in her review doesn't spare a single cast member and most of all totally mauls Horowitz's playscript. All of the actors, the producer and of course the writer himself become suspects, but soon Anthony Horowitz takes the lead. With his knife used in the commission of the crime and his fingerprints not surprisingly all over the weapon, he is arrested and put through a bruising interrogation which leaves his bewildered and scared. And so, he goes on the run.
It is a brilliant idea for the author to become a fugitive from justice in his own book. As can be expected, he wouldn't last long in the wild without help from detective Hawthorne who, incidentally, may or may not believe in his innocence. Together the two men, the fugitive and his accessory, go about following every lead and clue, digging into their thespian friends' murky secrets and potential motives for murdering Harriet Throsby.
The mystery is deliciously complex and the characters idiosyncratic. Everyone of them could be the killer, including the author.
Even better than A Line to Kill, the previous in the series, which is getting better with every new instalment.

The Twist of a Knife is a very clever and interesting work of fiction. Anthony Horowitz played by Anthony Horowitz; this is a master at work…it is written in the first person by himself about himself.... To put yourself in the role of main protagonist is unusual but very clever.
A suspect in a murder case the author is pretty much condemned to taking the fall for the murder but why?
This is a refreshing take on a whodunnit and a brilliant book ... I was taken in from the beginning and couldn’t work out who had done it until the end….
The plot was exciting and absorbing, and a real pager turner. The denouement was very Agatha Christie and worked well.
I really enjoyed this murder mystery - although at times I struggled to separate fact and fiction. It kept me guessing until the end.
A really good read that I would definitely recommend and I look forward to reading more books by Anthony Horowitz.

The Twist of the Knife is the latest in the other Anthony Horowitz meta-detective series. In the Atticus Pund series you have a book about murder in a book about murder. In the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, you have a fictional Anthony Horowitz getting involved in solving murders and writing a book about the process. This is the fourth book and sees Horowitz himself the main suspect in a murder after a critic is stabbed to death after giving Horowitz’s new play a terrible review. It’s really clever - it’s incredibly meta as Horowitz references the need to write the Moonflower Murders while he’s trying to slice the murder. Obviously you should start reading these at the start of the series, but if you’ve enjoyed the earlier mysteries, I think you will enjoy this one. My copy came from NetGalley, but it’s out in the shops today in hardback, Kindle and Kobo.

The earlier three instalments of the Hawthorne and Horowitz series were huge hits for me, so I went into this story with high expectations. I needn’t have worried, since the tale was every bit as brilliant as its predecessors, and the warmth, humour, and wit evident throughout the rest of the series poured off every page. The characters were brilliantly drawn, as ever, and I really enjoy the odd relationship between the two main characters.

This time, the stakes are raised even higher as Horowitz (protagonist and author of the book) also becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a critic who has panned his most recent play. He and Horowitz must therefore solve the murder, in their own unique way, while also dodging the somewhat incompetent efforts of the police on their tails. I did correctly work out (or perhaps guess?) the killer and motive this time, but it in no way hampered my enjoyment of a wonderfully constructed “whodunit”. I can’t wait for the next one…

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

The Twist of a Knife is the fourth in the author’s crime mystery series featuring ex-Detective Inspector Hawthorne and author Anthony Horowitz in the role of sidekick and, in this case, murder suspect. I really enjoyed the two previous books in the series I’ve read – The Word in Murder and A Line to Kill – and at some point I will get around to reading the second book, The Sentence is Death.

A Twist of the Knife has all the elements fans of the series have come to expect, including the author’s deadpan humour. ‘St John’s Gardens had originally been a cemetery but the dead bodies had all been removed (to Woking, which must have surprised them)’. And when he is arrested, he is sure sales of his children’s books will collapse but that it might help his crime fiction. There are plenty of references to the author’s work – his Alex Rider series, his TV drama Foyles War – and he admits, ‘If there’s a book of mine in a room, it’s always the first thing I’ll see’ but these are balanced by his self-deprecating observations.

Hawthorne is his same old self – taciturn, dismissive of his former colleagues, not afraid to tell a porkie or two to get access to a suspect or when questioning a witness, or to call on the skills of his neighbour Kevin. And Hawthorne’s remarkable observational and deductive skills are once again on display. The author teases us with some more details about Hawthorne’s childhood and private life, although tantalisingly his literary alter ego stops short of further probing even when given an unexpected opportunity. Hawthorne warns him, ‘I don’t want you talking about how and where I live. All right? And I definitely don’t want to read about it in your book’. Oops.

We also learn a few things about Anthony Horowitz, namely that he’s not averse to a bowl of Coco Pops and his library contains five hundred books. (I bet he has more than that really but I completely believe he possesses all the Bond novels and a signed copy of I, Claudius found in a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye.)

The book has a colourful cast of characters, including those appearing in Horowitz’s comedy thriller, Mindgame, the play which attracts such a scathing review from feared theatre critic, Harriet Throsby. Just about everyone has the motive, means and opportunity to have committed the murder but none of them has so much evidence pointing to them as the culprit as Anthony Horowitz. Did he do it or is someone out to get him?

The final act sees Hawthorne create a mise-en-scène reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel. Has he worked out whodunnit it? Of course he has. Will you have? I very much doubt it.

The Twist of a Knife is another highly entertaining murder mystery, full of wit and invention.

I don’t think I will ever not absolutely love and devour an Anthony Horowitz Hawthorne novel! I just adore everything about them. Characters, settings, style of writing. It’s one million yeses from me and if you haven’t already pre ordered this you’d be foolish!!

This is the fourth book in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series but can be read as a standalone. I did. The main premise is that the author is in his own book & often works with ex-detective Hawthorne.

Horowitz is in deep trouble. His hopes of West End success have been dashed. The most vitriolic critic has been found dead, stabbed with his knife & he has been arrested. He calls on Hawthorne for help but they didn’t part best of friends.

I loved this book & particularly the relationship between the two main characters. I often found myself having a wry smile at their antics & banter.
Recommended & I’m off to find the other three books.

Well, following on from the premise of the book, I really do feel like I must leave a very positive review with nothing critical at all...

Jokes aside, I believe that the Horowitz/Hawthorne series is really beginning to hit its stride and I would argue that this is the best one yet. With Anthony Horowitz a key protagonist, the lines between reality and fiction become increasingly blurred, and once or twice, I found myself googling to see if things had really occurred as written... Of course not. Cleverly plotted, with some very satisfying twists, along with nods to the masters of the genre, I was engrossed and finished this over 24hrs.

I'm glad Hawthorne has persuaded Horowitz to add more to the series as I want to find out more about Reeth, as well as further crimes that may occur.

Anthony Horowitz has completed his three book deal with Daniel Hawthorne and as far as he’s concerned he won’t be doing anymore. Hawthorne is difficult to get to know which makes him very difficult to write about. He also has other things on his mind, such as the opening of his new play, Mindgame, set to premiere at the Vaudeville Theatre.


The early reviews aren’t great and the Sunday Times critic Harriet Throsby is particularly brutal, seemingly picking out Anthony for special attention. The next morning she is found stabbed through the heart with an ornamental dagger. A dagger, which belongs to Anthony and has his fingerprints all over.


Standing accused of murder there’s only one person Anthony can turn to; Daniel Hawthorn. But after Anthony refused more book deals, will he agree to help him?


This is the fourth in the series where Anthony Horowitz has made himself a character in his books and it’s a novel idea. Unfortunately it puts me off somewhat as it’s never clear which glimpses of his life are accurate and which aren’t. I found myself spending more time questioning that than I did the murder. His narration is filled with self deprecating humour which I enjoy as it shows Horowitz is clearly having fun with his creation.


I find Daniel Hawthorne a much more interesting character and I wanted more of him in the book. He’s not exactly likeable but there’s something about him that makes you want to get to know him more. The little nuggets of information we got about his past is clearly leading to some big reveal.


The plot itself is fun and follows the standard formula with a group of suspects clearly determined. Of course there’s no doubt our duo will find the real murderer and clear Anthony’s name, but the enjoyment is watching how they do it. Horowitz is very adept at crafting well thought out murder mysteries and this was no exception.

“Anthony Horowitz, I am now arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Harriet Throsby.”


Anthony Horowitz has had enough of working with the detective Daniel Hawthorne, writing up the cases that they have worked on in the past. Now, however, Anthony is going to need Hawthorne’s help more than ever.

Anthony’s new play, Mindgame, has been going well on tour, and things seem to bode well for the opening night of its West End run in the Vaudeville Theatre. After the opening night, the cast and crew are all rewarded with ornamental daggers from the backer’s previous production of Macbeth. Unfortunately, Anthony’s has a slight defect – unfortunate in the sense that when it is found sticking out of the body of the show’s primary critic, it seems that Anthony is the obvious suspect.

The critic in question, Harriet Throsby, certainly had a habit of making enemies but would anyone really kill for a bad review. And if Anthony didn’t kill her, then who on earth would want to frame him for murder?

There’s a way that I’m able to tell if I’m engrossed in the mystery element of a book, namely that I have trouble finishing the book. Not in a bad way, I should clarify, just that I keep putting the book down in order to think about what I might have missed along the way. The finest murder mysteries are like jigsaw puzzles when you haven’t the faintest idea of what the picture is and, more importantly, there are a number of background pieces that need to be put together despite them not making part of the big picture – and, admittedly, one or two that are shaped like scarlet fish that need to be ignored, no matter how tempting they might be. The skilled armchair detective can put the pieces together, but the more casual reader will only marvel at what a beautiful picture the pieces made at the end of the day while kicking themselves for trying to jam the fish-shaped bits into the picture.

Such books these days are rare – to be honest, they were pretty rare back in the days of classic mysteries. One author, however, always delivers on this score and yes, it would be weird to write this in this review if it wasn’t Anthony Horowitz. Forget for a moment the fun framing of the book, namely written in the first person by the author telling a tale based around truths of his life – Mindgame is a real play that he wrote, admittedly in 2000, and there are references to trying to write Moonflower Murders. Forget the nicely-drawn circle of suspects, the cast, the director, the backer of the play along with enough tangential characters who may or may not be important to the plot. Forget the enigmatic Hawthorne, whose past we learn another snippet about in this one.

Even putting those aspects aside, this is an excellent murder mystery with almost everything foreshadowed in ways that you probably won’t notice, instead looking in the directions that the author wants you to while slipping the obvious (in hindsight, of course) right past you. This is a masterful mystery, one of the finest that I’ve read this year. According to the author, there are apparently ten books planned in the series – there’s a joke in here about the difficulty of coming up with titles for them – and quite frankly, I can’t wait!

Many thanks to Penguin for the review e-copy via NetGalley. The Twist Of A Knife is out in hardback and ebook on Thursday August 18th.

NB: By the way, ignore the Amazon blurb that says this is a locked room mystery. It’s not, not that it remotely matters…

‘The Twist of a Knife’ is the fourth book in Anthony Horowitz’s Hawthorne series. In it Horowitz (the author is the main protagonist) becomes the prime suspect when theatre critics start getting murdered, due to the victims having written negative reviews of his new play Mindgame, Despite their fractious relationship, Horowitz ends up turning to Hawthorne to solve the crimes.

When writing this series Horowitz draws heavily on the Sherlock and Watson dynamic. However, whilst often hapless like Doyle’s scribe Watson, Horowitz’s character has the vanity and social skills of Sherlock. This risks the reader disliking the author and therefore the book, however the joke is often on Horowitz and this is a cleverly plotted who dunnit, where the clues are subtle and the conclusion satisfying.

Another tale about Horowitz and Hawthorne investigating a murder but this time it's different, this time Anthony is the main suspect. Suddenly it all becomes so much more real.
Like the earlier books we hear the answers to the questions Hawthorne asks but we are still in the dark until he puts it all together and explains it all. I loved the Christie style reveal at the end when all the suspects are present for the big denouement.
This book works as a standalone read but you would appreciate the relationship between Hawthorne and Horowitz more if you had read the previous books. This was my least favourite of the series though, maybe because I struggled more with the mix of fiction and reality. Horowitz wasn't just the narrator he was also the chief suspect, references were made to him currently writing Moonflower Murders, a book I have already read and enjoyed. I just felt slightly more detached than previously.
That aside, it is another good, puzzling murder mystery that gives you all the clues but defies you to identify the murderer.

I dived into this book and thought I was reading an author foreword, to begin with, before I realised what readers of the previous three books know, the author is a character in this book. Full of sensory imagery, vibrant characters and literary and theatrical references, this book plays out like a play or film; consequently, it's easy to immerse yourself in the setting and characters' lives.

Hawthorne and Horowitz are an enigmatic duo, and their verbal interplay is entertaining, making this book special. The plot is layered and twisty, and the ending is satisfying.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

Anthony Horowitz is new to me as an adult author. This book is the 4th in a series but reads easily as a standalone novel.
As opposed to a narrator, the author as a character is not new to film but not one I’ve often seen in print. There is a blending of fact and fiction woven into a locked room, golden age type whodunnit that is immensely enjoyable. Even better for me is the back catalogue I’m about to read. Highly recommended.

The Twist of a Knife is the fourth in the Hawthorne series, where Anthony Horowitz himself is one of main characters! Horowitz is a writer, who teams up with grizzled private detective Hawthorne to solve crimes but also write best-selling novels at the same time!

This was my favourite of the series so far, featuring the opening night of the fictional Horowitz's stage play, plus the cast after party and the brutal killing of harsh theatre critic Harriet Throsby. Horowitz becomes the prime suspect and gets thrown in jail, with no obvious means of clearing his name. Hawthorne is the one man who can come to his rescue, but will he agree to help, and at what cost?

The Twist of a Knife is a great read, perfect for on the beach or curling up in a cosy corner.

This is the fourth book in a series by author Anthony Horowitz, but the first time I have read anything by this author. It’s an interesting read as the author is also one of the characters. He writes about ex detective Daniel Hawthorne and stars as his companion in the book. Daniel guards his privacy and is not the easiest person to work with.

In this story author Horowitz has completed three books of the four he was contracted to write. Hawthorne is keen to get book four underway, but Horwitz is keen to move on to other projects, one being his new play, a thriller called ‘Mindgame’, which is about to open at the Vaudeville theatre in London.

Following the opening night the play is given mixed reviews with one critic Harriet Throsby penning particularly harsh comments . The next day, Throsby is found dead, stabbed in the heart with an ornamental dagger found to be owned by Horowitz. With overwhelming evidence - a dagger covered in his fingerprints, plus her less than favourable review, the police are soon knocking on his door and he is arrested.
When a second murder occurs - also theatre critic, our author is in real trouble and enlists the help of Hawthorne.

It was a very different read from my normal, but nevertheless enjoyable. I liked the writer’s style and there was enough intrigue to keep me going until the end. A worthy four star review.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Random House UK for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is book 4 in this wonderful, original, quirky series, featuring the author as a character in his own book. So, as per usual I am going to recommend you start from the beginning if you haven't already done so. If you have then you know what yo are letting yourself in for and should just get and read the book. No need for further reading of this review...!
So now no one is reading this cos you are all well behaved...
Mr Horowitz really steps up a gear in this book. Not only is he a character, he's the main suspect, arrested, charged and thrown into jail. Having already upset Hawthorne he doesn't really expect much help to come from that direction, but then again, Hawthorne is a funny fish with his own agenda...
I love this series. And I loved this book even more cos I have actually seen Mindgame, the play around which all the action ensues. So that gave me an all the more stronger connection to what was going on and made me chuckle with a few in jokes that the author may have consciously or sub-consciously inserted.
Anyway... the plot was good, and original. Horowitz being a character still hasn't grown old and, with a bit of luck, will only go from strength to strength in further books, fingers crossed.
Characters were, as always, well drawn and pacing was also balanced with the narrative. And the ending, when it came, was wholly satisfying.
All in all, another winner... Really hanging for the next one now!
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I was so excited to be given an ARC of 'The Twist of a Knife' . I have read the 3 previous installments of this series. I think the book would work well as a stand alone, but there are nods to the previous books in the series.

I really enjoy the style of this book series having the author as one of the main characters and working alongside this elusive ex police officer, trying to figure out murders for a new book, Horowitz always being a few steps behind Hawthorn, you can almost feel Horowitzs frustration at this and the fact that he wants to know more about Hawthorn. I am fully invested in the relationship between 'Tony' and Hawthorn, there is definitely a Holmes/Watson vibe to the Hawthorn Horowitz or Poirot/Hastings or maybe a bit of both.

In this latest installment it is Horowitz who is in trouble, the morning after opening night of a play Horowitz has written. Theatre Critic Harriet Thosby is found Murdered after writing a scathing review of his play, the police detective Cara Grunshaw seems to have built a solid case against Antony. Hawthorn and Horowitz have a few days to find the real killer… in Agatha Christie style this is exactly what Hawthorn does, all the clues are right there in the book, but you have definitely for to look for them and of course the author is fantastic at using misdirection so when you think you have got it the story changes direction.

This is once again a well written, engaging, fun, the main characters feel like old friends. I feel like there is a definite nod to Conan-Doyle and Agatha Christie but not a copy like so many have tried and failed, Antony Horowitz has taken that formula and made it into something new. I am hoping that there will be more in this series so we can continue to see this friendship bloom.

This series is one that I do and will continue to recommend. This particular book is possibly my favourite in the series so far…..

Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin Random House and Antony Horowitz for an ARC of this book.