Review: Vivien Horler

Close to Death, by Anthony Horowitz (Century/ Penguin Random House)

In his acknowledgements Anthony Horowitz writes: “This was quite a complicated novel to write….”

I thought it was quite a complicated novel to read – and I’m still not sure who the baddy was.

But I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

Until last month I’m not sure I’d read Horowitz before, or certainly not his Hawthorne novels.

In these murder thrillers Horowitz becomes a fictional alter ego in his own books, working as a writer alongside Daniel Hawthorne, a former top detective who left the police under a cloud (an accused in handcuffs slipped down the stairs, and Hawthorne was right behind him) and is called in as a freelancer to help solve tricky cases.

My first Hawthorne novel – read just last month – was The Sentence is Death, published in 2018, a tale about a divorce lawyer bludgeoned to death in his London home.

Hawthorne is seconded to the case, and Horowitz, who has a three-book contract to write about Hawthorne, stumbles along behind him, trying to figure out what’s going on. Hawthorne doesn’t think much of Horowitz’s detection abilities. It was a great read on a long flight.

Close to Death is slightly different. Horowitz is contracted to produce his fifth Hawthorne book by Christmas, but there haven’t been many interesting murders lately. He persuades Hawthorne to open his archives and focus on a case which happened five years previously, before Horowitz was his sidekick.

Close to Death looks at a murder in an idyllic gated close in London’s beautiful Richmond-upon-Thames. There are just six homes in Riverview Close, and the inhabitants, although quite different personalities, all get along famously.

Then a new family, the Kenworthys, move in. He’s a former Eton pupil and a hedge fund manager. He has a UKIP banner in his window, which unnerves Andrew Pennington, a retired black barrister.

Although the Kenworthys have only two garages, they have four cars and a camper van, which they park where they can.

They also have two young sons who play cricket in the close (no ball games allowed), and ride their skateboards across the flowerbed in the centre of the close.

And now they have applied to the council to install a swimming pool and Jacuzzi on their lawn, which will mean the loss of their invalid neighbour’s peaceful view.

Neighbour Dr Tom Beresford, a GP, is outraged that Giles Kenworthy parks in their shared driveway, blocking his own egress. One morning, because of this, Beresford is late to his rooms, by which time a waiting patient has had a heart attack and died.

Another neighbour, Adam Strauss, a chess grand master, has a valuable chess set destroyed by a cricket ball that comes through his window, hit by one of the Kenworthy boys.

Then there are the parties, the beloved dog that is mysteriously killed, and the 4am arrivals at the front door, music blaring.

The people in the close are up in arms, but individual appeals to the Kenworthys are ignored.

What to do? Anyone who has lived in a gated community will recognise some of this.

Pennington, the retired barrister, has a suggestion. They will have an informal meeting of all the residents, with food and drink, to talk things over. But at the last minute Giles Kenworthy sends a message to say they can’t make it.

The neighbours are left helpless, frustrated and outraged.

Some six weeks later, Giles Kenworthy is found murdered on his doorstep, a crossbow arrow in his throat. Everyone knows Roderick Browne, “dentist to the stars” and a one-time archer, has a crossbow in his garage.

But Roderick is distraught – it wasn’t him, he swears. Being called to an interview at the local police station almost pitches him over the edge.

Despite the fact almost everyone in the close has a motive, Detective Superintendant Tariq Khan believes he has an open-and-shut case. Hawthorne isn’t so sure.

And I can’t say another word. Except to add I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and I’m still not entirely convinced whodiddit. I think Horowitz is with me.