Richmond Upon Thames is one of the most desirable areas to live in London. And Riverview Close – a quiet, gated community – seems to offer its inhabitants the perfect life.
At least it does until Giles Kenworthy moves in with his wife and noisy children, his four gas-guzzling cars, his loud parties and his plans for a new swimming pool in his garden.
His neighbours all have a reason to hate him and are soon up in arms.
When Kenworthy is shot dead with a crossbow bolt through his neck, all of them come under suspicion and his murder opens the door to lies, deception and further death.
The police are baffled. Reluctantly, they call in former Detective Daniel Hawthorne. But even he is faced with a seemingly impossible puzzle.
How do you solve a murder when everyone has the same motive?
One of the events that I was particularly excited about at this year’s Hay Festival was Anthony Horowitz discussing his latest novel in the Detective Daniel Hawthorne series, Close to Death. I love the series (links to my reviews of the previous instalments can be found below) and I’ve not previously had the opportunity to attend one of his events. If you do get the opportunity, I recommend it. He’s extremely funny and engaging live, and I enjoyed hearing more about his work in books, film, and TV, and the decision to include himself in these novels.
Close to Death is the fifth novel featuring Detective Daniel Hawthorne and his somewhat reluctant sidekick “Tony” Horowitz, and as such I do recommend that you read the preceding four novels first. While each focuses on a separate crime, there is a benefit in understanding the background between these two characters, and the events of the previous novels are referred to in subsequent instalments Additionally, they are absolutely brilliant, and while the claim from the Sunday Times that Horowitz is “Easily the greatest of our crime writers” may seem like hyperbole, I think there’s a distinct possibility that it’s true.
There are seven or eight hundred murders a year in the United Kingdom, but most of them aren’t mysterious. A fight in a pub. A domestic argument that turns violent. Knife crime. These are all horrible, but nobody wants to read about them.
While the previous novels in the series see Hawthorne called in to work out whodunnit in an active murder case, Close to Death changes things up a little. As Horowitz calls out at the start of the novel, there aren’t that many murders requiring the expertise of someone like Hawthorne in the UK. Instead, this novel looks at one of Hawthorne’s previous cases from before they started working together. Hawthorne being Hawthorne – a prickly individual if ever there was one – he doesn’t hand all of the case notes over in one go, but instead drip feed the information through so that Horowitz has no choice but to follow the investigation linearly. It results in a split narrative – one sharing Hawthorne’s case as he investigated it five years earlier, and the present day as we see more from Horowitz as he writes it up and shares his views as to who the guilty party might be. It brings new life to the series while working as well as the previous novels, and it’s great to see that this isn’t going to be one of those series that, upon finding a winning formula, never deviates from it.
And the case itself is as fascinating and complex as you could hope for. A small, gated community in the well-to-do Richmond-upon-Thames is shocked by the murder of one if its residents, and particularly the manner of dispatch as he’s discovered by his wife having been shot by a crossbow. Giles Kenworthy was the neighbour from hell and so isn’t mourned per se, but it does raise a lot of questions as it seems likely that one of the Riverview Close residents is likely to have been responsible. I have to admit that I did work out a little of what was going on in this novel, although not the culprit or the reason for their actions, but I’m feeling quite proud in being a step ahead of “Tony” in this one. I like that Horowitz always plays fair with the reader in his novels – the clues are there for the well-practised armchair sleuth to identify, but buried in red herrings and misdirection that successfully throw me off the scent.
Close to Death is a welcome addition to a fantastic series. These are such brilliantly wrought mysteries and I love the ever so gradual reveal of the details of Hawthorne’s past as “Tony” is determined to discover more about him despite his reticence in sharing any details about himself. Having said that, “Tony” is straying ever closer to trouble with his desire to uncover some background information on Hawthorne, which he claims is to bring the character to life, but I think is also due to a little stubbornness as well, and I’m curious to see how far he’s willing to go. He’s pushing at the boundaries of what’s acceptable in this novel, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the next instalment, and I really do hope that there is another one!
Highly recommended.
The Detective Daniel Hawthorne series:
Book 2 of 20 Books of Summer 2024.
Jo's Book Blog 
Well, this sounds absolutely brilliant! Good thing I already bought it 😄
So, so good! x
I only read the first one but it was pretty fun, I love how “meta” his books are!
They’re such good fun. When I read the first one and realised he was a character in it, I wondered if there was some ego there, but he gets away with it by getting pretty much everything wrong.
I thought exactly the same thing hahaha
So glad you enjoyed this, I can’t waitt for the next one!
Such a great series, isn’t it? I really hope that there are more!
It really is!