Close to Death: Anthony Horowitz

Author Anthony Horowitz does something different for his fifth book in his series of Hawthorne mysteries.

Of course, anyone who’s been following the series knows he’s been doing something different since publishing the first book.

Instead of creating a fictional Dr. Watson as sidekick and narrator as Arthur Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes, Horowitz has inserted himself as sidekick and narrator in his Daniel Hawthorne mysteries.

Ever since Horowitz met Hawthorne, a former police investigator turned private eye in “The Word is Murder,” the author is not only the chronicler of the fictional adventures but a character in each of the books. Hawthorne wanted someone to tell the stories of his cases and pushed Horowitz, already an established author of a series of youth books and Holmes stories such as “The House of Silk” and a James Bond novel, “Trigger Mortis,” into taking the job.

While it’s an intriguing literary device, Horowitz exploits it as a marketing tool. He mentions his Alex Rider series and his other books and writing projects within each volume.

Horowitz also presents himself as a less than an astute detective, often misreading evidence or believing the guilty party is not the suspect which makes him the butt of Hawthorne’s scorn.

Because even though Hawthorne compelled Horowitz to become his Watson, the detective doesn’t seem to like the author and is reluctant to share too much about himself with Horowitz. Making Hawthorne possibly the biggest mystery within the Hawthorne mysteries.

In the fifth book, “Close to Death,” readers learn more about Hawthorne, which only deepens the mystery.

All while Horowitz chronicles one of Hawthorne’s past cases.

In the first four books, Horowitz accompanies Hawthorne while the detective works. In “Close,” there’s no new murder case, so Hawthorne shares a past case for Horowitz to turn into a book.

A rude man is disliked by all of his neighbors. His cars block a doctor from getting to his patients. His children tear up gardens and lawns. His parties disturb and annoy the neighbors who are never invited to the affairs. His politics paint him as racist to one neighbor. His wife threatens two elderly neighbors’ dog.

The neighbors schedule a meeting with the man to address their concerns. He is a last-minute no-show. A short time later, the man is dead and the neighbors are suspect.

Hawthorne doles out information on the case in a piecemeal fashion. He doesn’t immediately tell Horowitz everything about the case nor does he share the identity of the killer. For the first half of “Close to Death,” the book moves back and forth between the story of the case and scenes where Hawthorne reads what the readers have just read then tells Horowitz what he got wrong.

The second half continues telling the story of the case but Horowitz starts digging into the case himself, visiting the neighborhood and trying to find out more about the man who was Hawthorne’s partner during the case.

Regular readers of the Hawthorne series should enjoy this latest entry. It switches up the usual dynamics of the relationship between detective and author while performing the dual trick of revealing more about Hawthorne’s character and simultaneously deepening the mystery around him.

Newcomers should be able to jump right into “Close to Death” without reading the earlier books though a few of the subtleties of the relationship and storyline may be lost.

The Midnight Line: Lee Child

Jack Reacher sees a West Point class ring in the window of pawn shop in a small Wisconsin town.

The ring is small. Its year, 2005, a tough time for any American military person with Iraq and Afghanistan in full. A woman’s ring, her initials are engraved inside.

A West Point alum himself, Reacher wonders what hardships would lead a graduate to pawn such a hard-earned item. Given Reacher has no responsibilities and goes where he wants, he decides to acquire the ring and find its rightful owner. That’s the set-up for “The Midnight Line,” Lee Child’s 22nd book in his Jack Reacher series.

Reacher’s interest in the ring sets off alarm bells throughout a network of criminal activity. The bad guys view his interest in the ring as seeking the source of a motherlode of ill-gotten goods, drugs and other illicit activities.

After all, who would believe that a man merely wants to a return a class ring to the woman who originally owned it?

“The Midnight Line” is prime Reacher and prime Lee Child. Child briefly toys with readers by doing something that rarely happens – he carries over a love interest/partner from a previous book.

Private investigator Michelle Chang was Reacher’s partner and love interest in the book, “Make Me.” Reacher’s chronology of being a nomadic wanderer across the United States was interrupted by two books – the flashback to his military career in “Night School” and the short-story collection in “No Middle Name.” So, two books and a couple of years passed between the release of “Make Me” and “The Midnight Line” – though “Midnight” happens a short time after “Make Me” – but Chang is still with Reacher in the opening pages of “The Midnight Line.”

But not for long. She’s gone in the first few pages but he thinks about her throughout “The Midnight Line.” Very new territory for the love-them-and-leave-them philosophy and history of Reacher.

Not that it changes him nor helps those who oppose him as he works his way up a criminal food chain in his search for the woman who earned the West Point ring.