‘Nobody ever told Morse or Rebus to mind their own business.’ – A Line To Kill by Anthony Horowitz
But someone does say it about Daniel Hawthorne. Like those two famous fictional sleuths, Daniel Hawthorne, once on the trail, is indefatigable – utterly committed. He’ll see it through, no matter what.
In A Line To Kill, “it” consists of a suspicion of foul play, at work in a seemingly benign venue: a literary festival on Alderney, one of the Channel Islands. Now an island is a fine setting for a mystery, as Dame Agatha would tell you. A limited pool of suspects keeps the tension high and climbing higher. Of course, there is a murder, shortly followed by another. Officers from nearby Guernsey are present at the scene, but it is Hawthorne, acting in concert with the police, who keeps things moving towards their inevitable conclusion.
One thing must be said about Daniel Hawthorne: He pursues leads with inexorable force. If his blunt questioning causes pain, well, so be it. At one point, one of the individuals whom he’s been pressuring relentlessly rounds on him and delivers this diatribe:
“I know you’re only doing your job, Mr. Hawthorne, and you don’t really care how you get your results. I was there when you were giving your talk and it struck me then that you have absolutely no heart at all. You don’t believe in the law. You don’t want to help people or society. You don’t seem to have any understanding of morality at all. You’re a detective. That’s all that matters to you.”
Hawthorne makes no response to this ringing condemnation. The narrator, Anthony Horowitz, thinks to himself, ‘As a parting shot, it was a good one.’
In fact, to me. the most interesting thing about this series is the relationship between Anthony and Daniel. At times, they seem like two halves of the same person, but much of the time, they are seriously at odds. Anthony’s task is to shadow Daniel in order to write about his methods, much as Dr. Watson narrates the exploits of Sherlock Holmes. But there was much less static in that relationship than there is in the relationship between Anthony and Hawthorne. Anthony often feels like second best alongside Hawthorne, whose brilliant insights run circles around his own comparatively sluggish thought processes.
In the final chapters of A Line To Kill, the author has a great deal of summing up and explaining to do. I’ve encountered this tendency in any number of mysteries, and I find it off-putting – a sign that the narrative has become too convoluted, or the characters too numerous, or both. This is where the mystery short story has an advantage over a full length novel, I think. It’s limited duration keeps things relatively simple and straightforward.
Anyway, don’t let these final observations put you off reading the book. It was fun and a fast read. I recommend it.
Books to the Ceiling 
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