If you’ve been reading and enjoying the enormously satisfying Hawthorne and Horowitz series, you will realise that Anthony Horowitz is doing something special here. By inserting himself into five books, he has become the embodiment of self-referential meta-writing that shows no bounds

Horowitz’s fifth Detective Hawthorne mystery is a head-scratching whodunit, a case so unsolvable that even a modern-day Sherlock Holmes might not be able to solve it

The setup here is very different from the first four books. In past stories, Horowitz narrates the events from the beginning, but Anthony doesn’t appear until nearly seventy pages into Close to Death. That means everything before that is written in the third person narrative, which is how we learn that the residents of Riverside Close hated Giles Kenworthy. It’s also how we learn that Kenworthy had made a nice living for himself in finance as a hedge fund manager before moving his family into Riverside Close, disrupting the peace and harmony their residents once enjoyed. Before his death, multiple neighbours – there’s Adam Strauss, a grandmaster chess player who fancies showing off his talent by taking on more than twenty opponents at a time; Doctor Tom Beresford, a man so frustrated that he’s started prescribing himself meds to get some needed rest before a long day in surgery; and Andrew Pennington, a retired barrister who is quick to check individual’s actions against the management contract each family signs, forcing them to comply for the betterment of the greater good – conspired to find a community violation egregious enough get the family kicked out. Not long after, Giles Kenworthy is found dead on his porch with a crossbow bolt stuck in his chest, making everyone living in Riverside Close a suspect

The local police, led by Detective Superintendent Tariq Khan, are investigating, but they need assistance. This comes in the form of Detective Daniel Hawthorne and his partner, John Dudley. The way that Hawthorne’s role in the case is introduced is truly outstanding

Anthony Horowitz – the character – doesn’t know what case to use for his fifth Hawthorne and Horowitz novel, so he reaches out to Hawthorne for help. This time, Hawthorne wants to see what Horowitz is writing along the way, a different strategy from what they employed in their four previous successful books. This is why Close to Death is told in a back-and-forth manner that features Horowitz in the present and Riverview Close five years earlier. Since Horowitz claims not to know the outcome of this odd case, Hawthorne feeds him info on it piece by piece, allowing both the reader and Horowitz to try to figure things out as the investigation moves forward

The crossbow that killed Kenworthy belonged to Roderick, who insists he wasn’t even aware that it and a deadly bolt were missing from his basement. Yet guilt seems apparent when Roderick commits suicide not long after Kenworthy’s murder. He is found in what mystery fans would call a locked-room situation. While Khan is ready to close the door on the case, Hawthorne believes that Roderick was not the killer and that the actual culprit murdered him himself

At this point, the confounding murder case pushes the great Hawthorne to the extremes of his detection skills. It’s very similar to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, where the detestable victim was equally despised by each and every suspect, which rendered it nearly impossible to name a single killer. The real Horowitz takes this premise and runs with it. The result is an unforgettable case that will have heads shaking for its brilliance, as well as the eventual solution. There is much to love about this mindbender of a novel

Close to Death will keep you guessing until the very last page. Try to keep up!