I must admit this didn't grab me quite as much as the others I have read in this series, not quite sure why but maybe because Mr Horowitz took more of a back seat in this one? I don't know but I still enjoyed it.

Horowitz needs to write another book but, unfortunately, no bodies have turned up so he writes about a previous case Hawthorne was involved in and what a case it is.

It appears to be an open and shut case relating to a murder of a man in a small community by his neighbour however, nothing is quite so simple especially when the alleged murderer is found dead in his locked garage, in his locked car from apparent suicide. It all seems a bit too simple and it certainly is.

Full of excellent and interesting characters, told at a good pace and with some great twists, this is an intriguing story and one I would recommend reading by people who enjoy this genre and I highly recommend reading the others in the series.

Many thanks to the author, RandomHouse UK, Cornerstone, Century and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of this great addition to a brilliant series.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for my copy of Close to Desth in exchange for an honest review.

I have to say this series is my guilty pleasure! Each instalment of this uniquely written series is unputtdownable even when in this case following the style of a cosy mystery with an element of locked door mystery.

In this instalment Anthony is under pressure from his publisher to produce a new book in the series but having had no new mystery to follow he asks Hawthorne to tell him about an old case, this leads him to Riverview Close in richmond and the case of annoying neighbour in a quiet cul de sac being shot with a crossbow. All the residents are suspects and they all have something to hide.

As usual the story runs parallel to Anthony’s own desperation to uncover the truth at the heart of the mystery that is Hawthorne keeping the mystery intriguing alongside the main body of the story.

Another thoroughly enjoyable book in this series.

I love the Hawthorne and Horowitz series of books. This book is number 5 in the series and it has a slightly different format. It is a bit more serious than the others, and not as much of the trademark humour of the earlier titles. There is enough back story for newcomers to this series to jump in and work out relationships of the main characters. This book has clever plotting and enough red herrings and twists to keep you occupied, and an edge of your seat ending. I was proud of myself for catching some of the clues, but realised on reflection that they had been fed to me. No spoilers, but I was genuinely worried towards the end of the book.

Another great read from Anthony Horowitz! You get two stories in this book, the one about the author, and the story he is writing. A very clever way to keep the reader interested, I really enjoyed it. Even though this is book 5, I haven’t read the others and was still able to follow along. Anyone who is a fan of cosy mysteries will love it. Definitely recommend, thank you #netgalley

'Close to Death' is another hugely clever and enjoyable instalment in Anthony Horowitz's Hawthorne series in which Horowitz appears as a hapless sidekick to the brilliant but unorthodox and somewhat unscrupulous former police detective Daniel Hawthorne.

This volume is slightly different from previous books: under pressure from his agent to deliver another Hawthorne book by the end of the year but with no new cases on the horizon, Horowitz turns his attention to one of Hawthorne's previous cases to 2014, using Hawthorne's notes and interview transcripts to try and solve the case himself. The murder in question takes place in the exclusive gated Riverview Close, inhabited by a memorable cast of characters including a 'dentist to the stars', a widowed criminal barrister and two former nuns who now run a cafe and bookshop specialising in cosy crime. The victim, shot with a crossbow, is wealthy crossbow, Giles Kenworthy who turns out to be the 'neighbour from hell', angering everyone with his inconsiderate parking, loud music, Union Jack flag and plans to build a new swimming pool. But everyone seems to have the same motive, and none seem strong enough to lead to murder.

The variation in format this time round works extremely well. As with the whole series, a lot of the fun comes from seeing Horowitz reflecting on his knowledge of crime fiction as a genre and how this relates to ostensibly real-life cases. Here, there are some interesting metafictional reflections on the narrative privilege conferred by the omniscient third-person perspective and the pros and cons of the locked room mystery. As well as the mystery of Giles Kenworthy's death, which is full of unexpected plot twists, there is also the ongoing enigma of Hawthorne as a character. Once again, Horowitz can't resist the temptation to investigate his fellow investigator, and ends up finding out more than he wants to.

The title 'Close to Death' implies that this could be Hawthorne and Horowitz's final outing together: it is possible that there might be further twists in store for us, but if this is the end then it marks a strong conclusion to what has been an original and highly entertaining series - many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.

I really enjoyed this book! And I’ll certainly be picking up the others. I enjoyed the fact that you weren’t sure what the answer was until the very end

Riverview Close is a quiet gated community located in Richmond Upon Thames.
All the neighbours get on until the Kenworthy family move in and a murder happens.
Giles Kenworthy is brash, rude and disrespectful. He has plans to put a pool into his garden, which upsets the whole Close, so someone steps in and kills him with an arrow to the chest, everyone had a reason to kill him and everybody is a suspect.
The police can’t figure out who did the deed so they call on Daniel Hawthorne and he tells Anthony Horowitz how solved the case, but he is reluctant to relive the past as Horowitz soon to discover for himself.
This series is highly entertaining and one of the best I’ve read.
Anthony Horowitz is a fine writer who knows how to tell a story that keeps the reader engrossed until its finale.
This another genius whodunnit which I highly recommend.

Neighbours, as the song goes, can become good friends – or bitter enemies, of course. Bitter enough to shun, ignore, hate, sue – or kill? Extreme, perhaps, but the best solution in the long term. In the enclave of Riverview Close, a private, gated group of six houses in the London Borough of Richmond on Thames, all the neighbours were friends until one family left and the new residents turned out to be trouble. Trouble in the sense of being selfish and uncaring of the community; loud, brash, barbecue burning, late night partying, probably racist, aggressive parking boors, with uncontrolled children. To be fair this appears to be down to the husband and father, Giles Kenworthy, a hedge fund finance sort of guy; the wife, Lynda, is somewhat aloof but pleasant enough. The rest of the community plan a get-together, billed as a social event but designed to try and get Giles to ‘toe the line’. Two things then conspire to stoke the animosity: Giles messages after the rest have already got together to say they won’t be coming, and a planning application is delivered announcing the construction of a swimming pool, sauna and changing rooms in the Kenworthy’s garden. Is this the final straw? It certainly seems so because, immediately after the council approve the plans, Giles is killed by a crossbow bolt through the throat. The case is investigated by Superintendent Khan, who has requested help from private detective Daniel Hawthorne and his assistant John Dudley. However, the case appears to be open and shut and so they are not needed, even though Hawthorne has raised a number of problems.
All this was five years ago, and Anthony Horowitz was not involved. However, after this case Anthony had replaced Dudley, and Hawthorne and Horowitz had become a successful team solving four complex cases which had become four successful books for the author. Now, though, Anthony is in a bind, because his five-book contract require a fifth book and there is no fresh body to investigate. In desperation, he seeks a Hawthorne case from before they met and hits upon the Riverview Close murder, a claustrophobic mystery involving a veritable Marple’s worth of characters. Despite Hawthorne’s protestations, he embarks on the task.
This book, as noted above, the fifth in the series, but differs from the others in that all of the evidence and the solution are already well known and Anthony is more an amanuensis than an investigator. Or so it seems. The style is very open, almost conversational, and flows so painlessly that it takes a little while for the reader to see that it is not at all the mystery they expected, but a much more complicated, indeed ingenious, one. Keeping track of the clues is a major intellectual task, the solutions brilliant in their contrivance. Altogether, a total enjoyment.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

When i started reading this book I was intrigued but didn't realise that it was the fifth book in the series. It is the first book that I have read by this author. I enjoyed it but it did take quite a while to get into it as it is written differently than most crime fiction books. It is a book within a book and the author is one of the main characters. It is a closed case that the author is writing a book on.
The story is very complex but really well written. In my opinion it also learns us a little about the authors perspective. It is difficult to try to explain the story without giving too much away and I am sure everyone will want to try to solve the puzzle of the crime themselves.
This is not a cosy crime, but I did get that kind of feeling of that when I started but the crime is not cosy, and more of a closed community crime.
Give it a read and see what you think. The author did a great job of tying up all the loose ends.
Many thanks to Random House UK, NetGalley and the author for providing me with an electronic advanced review copy in return for a honest and unbiased review.

I've always enjoyed Horowitz books but I felt him not being so present in this one.
Maybe it's the slightly different format in this book that doesn't completely gel with me.
That being said it's a great murder mystery with plenty of twists to keep the reader engaged.

Only as I ended the reading of this glorious story did I find out that it is the most recent in a long series. I've read books by this writer, Anthony Horowitz, but the Hawthorne mysteries were new to me. It does confirm that this can be read as a standalone because I didn't realise I was missing the first four books. I did however, wonder if I was reading two different books when the second chapter appeared to have nothing whatsoever to do with the first chapter until I reach the end of that part of the story and found how they were linked. This is both a simple and a complex story where one or more the neighbours must have murdered the one causing all the trouble in this private cul de sac. I had no idea how someone could have taken the bow and arrow from one of the neighbour's houses and use this as the murder weapon, but as the writer, as Hawthorne, investigates this mystery, there are so many clues and red herrings that it is impossible to know which of the neighbours, or someone else, committed the murder, until the very end. This is a very clever book, but is also a very straightforward read as the writer is extremely talented with managing to keep the reader hooked and interested all the way through. If there's another in this series, I'll certainly read it but I have to go back to book one, first.

This is the fifth book in the series although the first I have read. This isn't a live case so the detective was not involved much which is a first for me which I'm not sure if I liked. However, it is a clever and interesting story, with unusual and quirky character's and while I still guessed the guilty party it was still interesting seeing the how if not the who coming together. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The story:
On a tight deadline to write the fifth book in his true crime series — following the cases of former police detective-turned-private investigator Daniel Hawthorne — Anthony Horowitz has a problem… No one has been murdered…

However, delving back into Hawthorne’s past cases provides a potential story. In 2014 he was brought in to investigate the murder of an unpleasant neighbour at the desirable Richmond address of Riverview Close. The case presents an intriguing problem — how do you solve a crime, when all the suspects hate the victim equally?

My thoughts:
Anthony Horowitz is a go-to author for me, and I’ve enjoyed his Sherlock books and Magpie Murders series very much. In 2017 he began the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, in which a fictionalised version of Anthony himself appears — the Hastings to detective Daniel Hawthorne’s Poirot. Hawthorne is a very different detective though, and is reluctant to the point of hostility to have Anthony contribute to solving the cases they encounter.

“Close to Death” is the fifth and latest instalment in the series, and the location of the crime is like a modern version of St Mary Mead — a gated cul-de-sac in Richmond upon Thames in which the only suspects are the close-knit residents. As is also generally the case in golden age crime, we don’t waste too much time feeling sorry for the victim as he appears to be a very unpleasant man; in ways that anyone who has ever been annoyed by a neighbour blocking their car will be able to relate to!

This case is somewhat different to the previous ones Anthony and Hawthorne have worked on though, as it happened before they met — and the story is told to Anthony via Hawthorne’s notes, case files and recordings of the suspect interviews. I liked this new format, which moved back and forth between the case in 2014, and Anthony’s experiences in trying to write the book and get to the bottom of Hawthorne’s reluctance to talk about the case, and in particular his then-assistant John Dudley, whose place Anthony seems to have unknowingly taken.

The solutions to Horowitz’s mysteries are always so clever, and I changed my mind about the culprit repeatedly as I read. I also loved all the references to golden age crime (with two of the characters actually running my dream book shop!).

Overall, this was a great addition to the series, and mystery in its own right. We learnt a little bit more about the mysterious Hawthorne; although he was mostly absent from the modern timeline, Anthony does bumble into some discoveries by himself! As always, I’m already eager to learn where the story goes next, and would recommend this book to all mystery lovers!

The Fifth novel in the Hawthorne mysteries is slightly different in that the author does not take an active role in the proceedings. However, it is a clever and interesting story, fast paced and intriguing. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

This is an excellent mystery, a metabook as it contains chapters of a book in a book, and the portrait of a gated community in a posh area.
There's a lot I loved in this story as the sort of matrioska and you never know what will be in the next level.
It's enthralling and intriguing, a story told from the POV of the characters of the past and the POV of the author of the new book.
Complex, never confusing, always gripping.
I loved it and it's highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Even though I have read one of these before, I didn’t enjoy this one at all. The first part started off well but then the second part was all about how the narrator was in the story and I just found this bizarre. It spoilt the book for me and meant I skimmed it to find out how it ended.

Based on events supposedly investigated long ago, about a man murdered and the investigation of suspects, mostly the surrounding neighbours as all had grievances against him. Intertwined is the story of supposed author doing research into the evidence recorded nd Interviewing the detective on the case and all those involved. A most unusual form of crime novel.

A clever mystery that kept me guessing.
This is the first book I’ve read by Anthony Horowitz so I came at it without any previous baggage of what to expect. I've seen several reviews saying they either liked or disliked the main characters which affected their enjoyment of the book. I had no background knowledge, and I think it worked well as a standalone book, I didn’t feel like I was missing any backstory.
In this novel, Horowitz needs to write the next instalment of his Hawthorne and Horowitz crime series. However, there haven’t been any new cases to write about so they come upon the idea of using a Hawthorne past case: Giles Kenworthy is the neighbour from hell and has been making the lives of the occupants of Riverside Close a misery. 6 weeks after an intervention meeting with the residents of the close, which Giles and his wife do not attend, he is found dead with a crossbow bolt through his neck. But which of the neighbours fired the shot?
The series meshes reality with fiction, and does it really well. I had to Google to see if the book was based on a true story and which parts were true to life: Anthony Horowitz is a writer who has a series of teenage spy books - Alex Rider - he has written new Sherlock Holmes and James Bond stories and has written TV shows including Midsomer Murderers and Foyle’s War, both of which I’ve seen episodes of and enjoyed. He has a wife called Jill who works as a Film and TV Executive (forgive me if I have used incorrect terminology). All of this is referenced in the novel.
The thing that irked me, and means that I’ve given it a 4/5 star rating I was annoyed that Horowitz insisted on digging into Hawthorne’s past and his previous partner John Dudley and their dealings with the shady Alastair Morton despite repeatedly being warned away. Surely Hawthorne chose this case, so why would he give Horowitz the details if it came to a dissatisfying conclusion.
With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this novel in exchange for an honest reveiw.

Wow. An absolutely brilliantly written mystery in this series You could read as a stand-alone but the developing relationship between Hawthorne and Horowitz really adds to the story. This one was slightly different to the previous ones in that the author writes about an old case. I think this is the best one yet in the series and if I could award more than 5 stars I would. I was totally gripped from start to finish. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me access to an early copy of this book.

I enjoyed this book.

Close to Death is the fifth book in Antony Horowitz’s Hawthorne & Horowitz series in which the author himself is one of the characters. You can start here if you want to, but you’ll be missing much of the character interaction and history.

This book has a slightly different feel to it than previous installations of the series. When one of the residents of an affluent, locked-gate community is found dead on his door step, Hawthorne and his first partner John Dudley are called in to investigate. Horowitz is reconstructing the tale into prose from Hawthorne’s notes – although he can’t resist trying to find out in “present day” why Dudley is no longer on the scene, despite being warned not to. This all means that there is less Horowitz in the book than we are accustomed to and fewer scenes between Horowitz and Hawthorne. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – I felt it kept the series feeling fresh.

What else can I say? I liked the characters in this book. I enjoyed the plot.

Recommended to fans of Agatha Christie.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers, Century, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.