Except for the atrocities of World War II, there hasn’t been a murder on the Channel Island of Alderney from time immemorial. The staging of the Alderney Lit Fest brings that streak to a decided end. There is a running joke about titles in the novels with Hawthorne suggesting ‘Hawthorne Investigates’, and dismissing The Word is Murder as “too poncy”. “I am trying for a literary twist to the titles. The first was The Word is Murder and the second The Sentence is Death . I have painted myself into a corner because you run out of grammatical phrases for a murder story, so perhaps it was a mistake to keep trying to make some kind of allusion to writing.” The literary festival is described in loving detail in the book. “I love literary festivals. They are the one thing I have missed the most during the time of COVID-19. There is something wonderful about people coming together for the love of reading and books. The Jaipur Literature Festival is one of my favourites. I was amazed that thousands of people come to this city out of love for literature and books. There is something wonderfully civilised about it. In a world where there is so much discord, concern, worry and fear, and where politics seem to be out of control, it is heartening that there are people who want to come together to talk about stories. Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. As his regular readers will know, however, Horowitz has none of Christie’s flaws as an author and there are no cardboard cut-out characters, wildly improbable murder methods, or cosy camouflaging of harsh realities of crime and harm here. Alderney does not have a standing police service and although officers from neighbouring Guernsey are flown in, they have little experience with violent crime themselves and it is only natural that they take advantage of Hawthorne’s extensive expertise by recruiting him as an unpaid consultant.

Lesley is absolutely wonderful and Cattaneo is one of the most brilliant directors I’ve worked with.” This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by The sequence at the end of Live and Let Die (1954) when Bond is dragged over the coral reef is brilliant, says Horowitz. The novel brings together a small cast of writers with their own secrets and histories, including a blind psychic, an unhealthy chef, a children’s author, a local war historian and a French performance poet. A somewhat eclectic mix and Horowitz places this motley crew in an isolated location which is itself riven with political tension as a plan to run an electrical power line through the island to connect France and England. The sponsor of the festival – spinthewheel.com, an online casino – is owned by Charles le Mesurier one of whose employees is one Derek Abbott, the alleged paedophile who Hawthorne allegedly threw down a flight of stairs, an action which led to his leaving the police.

The clearer focus: the previous two novels – if I remember rightly – have both twisted towards the thriller genre by the conclusion as Horowitz blunders into the path of dangerous people and is nearly killed. This novel kept itself within detective conventions more. A Line to Kill was a very clever, suspenseful and compelling murder mystery that I thoroughly enjoyed '

From the latest Scandinavian serial killer to Golden Age detective stories, we love our crime novels!The sleuth and the scribbler are there to promote the first of their three proposed Inspector Hawthorne novels. Horowitz sums up the rest of the event’s participants: “an unhealthy chef, a blind psychic, a war historian, a children’s author, a French performance poet. . . . Not quite the magnificent seven.” Then there’s Charles le Mesurier, the online-gaming entrepreneur bankrolling the event, a wealthy and boorish figure who patronizes or taunts most of the men he meets and, though married, puts the moves on every pretty woman. On this occasion, the premise is that Horowitz has been invited to attend a literary fesitval on Alderney – the baby brother island to Guernsey and Jersey, measuring barely 5km long and 2.5 km wide, home to a shade over 2000 souls, according to Wikipedia. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. Very soon they discover that not all is as it should be. Alderney is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour.