Devi Nair
š§ Listened in audio š¢ Narrated by Rory Kinnear ā ARC from NetGalley ā± Duration: 9 hours š·ļø Publisher: HarperCollins š Publishing Date: April 28, 2026 Genre: Cozy Mystery
Here's the one thing that keeps me hooked on this series - the sheer brilliance and glorious weirdness of Anthony Horowitz making himself a character and then treating himself like the least important person in the room. This choice never gets old for me. In A Deadly Episode, we're back with the Hawthorne and Horowitz duo, and from the very first pages, Horowitz is being gently, cheerfully sidelined by his own publisher in favor of Hawthorne, because Hawthorne is the one who actually did it, right? The act of demeaning his own fictional character just enough to make Hawthorne look like the great towering genius of the story somehow works every single time. I spent half the book feeling bad for Horowitz and the other half admiring how brilliantly he's weaponizing that dynamic.
The premise is delicious. The film adaptation of The Word is Murder turns into a mystery itself. A screen version of The Word is Murder already feels meta, and then Horowitz drops a murder into the middle of it like he's casually showing off. The setting gave the story extra energy. I loved how the tensions behind the scenes mirrored the actual investigation. It all felt like a puzzle box built by someone who knows exactly how to keep the readers slightly off balance. The longer the book is, the happier I am because more pages means more time in this world, and nine hours of Rory Kinnear's narration felt like a gift I didn't deserve but absolutely accepted. Rory gives Hawthorn that superior edge while letting Horowitz sound perfectly self-deprecating, and the audiobook feels smoother, sharper, and like a complete character because of it.
And then there's Hawthorne's past. We get another tantalizing crumb of Danny Hawthorne's backstory in a just-enough way to keep you desperate for more. Every little glimpse into his childhood made me lean in harder, because I'm convinced there's a bigger story waiting there. I'm convinced a future book will pull back the curtain fully on who Hawthorne really is, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. This is the sixth book in the series, and Horowitz is still finding new ways to deepen it. That's not craft. That's sorcery.
Would I recommend it? This is a smart, playful, sharply constructed cozy mystery with a heavy dose of meta-fiction and one of the most entertaining author-as-character setup in crime fiction. I'm not even trying to be subtle. Anthony Horowitz is sheer genius , and this book is more proof of that.
š§ Listened in audio š¢ Narrated by Rory Kinnear ā ARC from NetGalley ā± Duration: 9 hours š·ļø Publisher: HarperCollins š Publishing Date: April 28, 2026 Genre: Cozy Mystery
Here's the one thing that keeps me hooked on this series - the sheer brilliance and glorious weirdness of Anthony Horowitz making himself a character and then treating himself like the least important person in the room. This choice never gets old for me. In A Deadly Episode, we're back with the Hawthorne and Horowitz duo, and from the very first pages, Horowitz is being gently, cheerfully sidelined by his own publisher in favor of Hawthorne, because Hawthorne is the one who actually did it, right? The act of demeaning his own fictional character just enough to make Hawthorne look like the great towering genius of the story somehow works every single time. I spent half the book feeling bad for Horowitz and the other half admiring how brilliantly he's weaponizing that dynamic.
The premise is delicious. The film adaptation of The Word is Murder turns into a mystery itself. A screen version of The Word is Murder already feels meta, and then Horowitz drops a murder into the middle of it like he's casually showing off. The setting gave the story extra energy. I loved how the tensions behind the scenes mirrored the actual investigation. It all felt like a puzzle box built by someone who knows exactly how to keep the readers slightly off balance. The longer the book is, the happier I am because more pages means more time in this world, and nine hours of Rory Kinnear's narration felt like a gift I didn't deserve but absolutely accepted. Rory gives Hawthorn that superior edge while letting Horowitz sound perfectly self-deprecating, and the audiobook feels smoother, sharper, and like a complete character because of it.
And then there's Hawthorne's past. We get another tantalizing crumb of Danny Hawthorne's backstory in a just-enough way to keep you desperate for more. Every little glimpse into his childhood made me lean in harder, because I'm convinced there's a bigger story waiting there. I'm convinced a future book will pull back the curtain fully on who Hawthorne really is, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. This is the sixth book in the series, and Horowitz is still finding new ways to deepen it. That's not craft. That's sorcery.
Would I recommend it? This is a smart, playful, sharply constructed cozy mystery with a heavy dose of meta-fiction and one of the most entertaining author-as-character setup in crime fiction. I'm not even trying to be subtle. Anthony Horowitz is sheer genius , and this book is more proof of that.