"The Word is Murder" by Anthony Horowitz

Since reading Magpie Murders by the same author last year I've been dying to read more of Horowitz's work. Unfortunately it is kind of impossible to talk about this book without mentioning his other novel, so I'll just sum it up briefly. Magpie Murders is about an author of crime fiction being murdered, and it goes through all of the tropes of writing crime fiction in the process of solving both murders. It's incredible, I loved it. The Word is Murder tries to do something similar, but from a different angle.

The main character of this book is an author called Anthony (sound familiar?). He is hired by a retired detective to write about his life and a case that he is working on (sound familiar?). The result is a Sherlock Holmes style story, that appears to be vaguely autobiographical. Even the "Acknowledgements" section is vague about what was real and what was not!

I looked up the facts, and yes it is fictional, but all of the details about Horowitz's own life are true. The book goes into how he wrote The House of Silk and "Foyle's War." The rest is made up. (Yes the novel says that names were changed and all that, but there literally isn't anyone who fits the bill of the other characters.)

What results is an interesting view into the writing process. The protagonist discusses what details he keeps in, and what he decides to leave out. He also talks about his uncertainty about writing about a case that might not even be solved by his detective! One scene that I thought was great was when Anthony realizes that his detective is homophobic. He goes through his thought process of how this wouldn't be a likable character in this day and age, and the mystery of why he is remains unsolved. And I think that's fine, to give a reason for it would add legitimacy to his beliefs, and the point still stands. He's a flawed hero, not someone who you would read about in crime novels, and that makes it more realistic. Anthony says over and over that this isn't an acceptable view to have, which denounces it quite effectively. But it shows the struggle of trying to take real life and turn it into a fiction, the way Watson did with Sherlock.

Unfortunately, if I had to pick one, it would be Magpie Murders. It just went through all of the tropes so well and effectively, and had a book-within-a-book format. The Word is Murder of course could never be as good as that, but it is still a great work in its own right, just comes from a slightly different angle. As a result I still highly recommend this work, but if you enjoy it, just go for Magpie Murders because that will blow your socks off. It's unfortunate that I keep comparing the two, really you should just read both, but that's how it works.