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Audiobook details
His own murder. His own investigation.
The first book Anthony Horowitz ever wrote about Daniel Hawthorne is now being turned into a film. The cast is in place, the cameras are rolling in Hastings, and both Hawthorne and Horowitz have been invited to the set. What they find is a production held together by money it no longer has, a director convinced of his own genius, two lead actors who cannot stand each other, and a screenwriter whose politics have made their way into dialogue nobody asked for.
Then the actor playing Hawthorne is stabbed to death. Rising star David Caine had no shortage of enemies. He had just sacked his personal assistant, destroyed his relationship with the film's director, slept with the screenwriter, humiliated his co-star, and cut ties with his agent three days before signing a major deal. Any of them could have wanted him dead. But there is another possibility: the killer was not aiming at David Caine at all. He was aiming at the real Hawthorne.
That thread pulls the investigation far from the film set, back to Yorkshire, back to a school that burned down years ago and a car accident that does not hold up to scrutiny. There is an innocent man who died in prison, and someone who believes Hawthorne put him there. It is the most personal case of his career, and for once, his hapless chronicler Anthony Horowitz is left to find the final piece on his own.
I have listened to every Hawthorne audiobook back to back and this one does something the others have not quite managed: it makes the meta structure feel genuinely necessary rather than just clever. The film-within-the-series setup is not a gimmick. It is load-bearing.
The premise lands immediately. Horowitz is on a film set watching an actor portray his own friend and collaborator, and that actor ends up dead. The comedy of the situation, and there is real comedy here, never undermines the stakes. Horowitz is funnier and more self-deprecating than ever, and the portrait of a film production imploding under the weight of everyone's ego is specific enough to feel observed rather than invented. Horowitz knows this world. It shows.
What pushes the book past the earlier entries is the Yorkshire thread. Once the investigation shifts out of Hastings and into Hawthorne's past, the tone changes. The case stops being a puzzle and starts being a reckoning. There is a section set in a burned-down school, and another in an Elizabethan country house that should feel incongruous but somehow does not. The connections between the two locations are earned, not convenient. The reveal lands with proper weight.
DS Sarah Milnes is a new addition worth mentioning. She is competent, useful, and does not exist to be charmed by Hawthorne. A small thing, but it changes the dynamic of the investigation in a way that keeps it from feeling formulaic.
Rory Kinnear narrates the whole thing in 8 hours and 4 minutes and this is his best performance in the series. The Horowitz voice is warmer, more worn-in. Hawthorne's clipped exchanges hit harder because Kinnear has clearly decided how much contempt to put into each word and commits to it. The pacing is exact. There is no dead air, no coasting.
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A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz is the sixth book in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, and the one that turns the entire setup inside out. The Word is Murder, the novel that started it all, is being adapted into a film. Horowitz and Hawthorne both end up on set, and before the shoot wraps, the actor playing Hawthorne is dead. The investigation that follows reaches back into Hawthorne's past and answers questions about his character that the previous five books carefully left open.
The free trial, cancellable at any time, lets you start right away. Rory Kinnear narrates across 8 hours and 4 minutes, and his command of the Horowitz voice, self-deprecating and dry and quietly panicked at all times, is better here than in any previous entry. The Hawthorne exchanges hit harder because Kinnear has refined exactly how much he holds back.
The audiobook is yours to keep even after the trial ends. The free trial also opens access to thousands of other titles with no commitment. Start listening now.
US-based editor & staff writer focused on audiobooks. Honest reviews, curated “best of” lists, and practical guides with an accessibility lens.
