I’ve been pretty happy with the Anthony Horowitz novels I’ve been able to pick up on special deals. His Hawthorn and Horowitz novels are an intriguing twist on the classic Holmes & Watson template – author Horowitz writes himself into the stories, and Hawthorne, his detective, is secretive and unsociable, a mystery in his own right. Hawthorne works for an equally secretive – and slightly sinister – private agency. Although the books were his idea in the first place, he is often reluctant to cough up the facts.

In Close to Death, it’s been a while since Hawthorne has produced a case for Horowitz to follow, and Horowitz’s agent is pressing for a new book. Hawthorne comes up with an old case that he worked back in 2014 with a different sidekick, about whom (of course) he is reluctant to say much.

The crime took place in Riverview Close, an expensive, gated cul-de-sac in a posh London suburb. The residents of the close were friendly and congenial until the Kentworthy family moved in. Giles Kentworthy was wealthy and ostentatious, and also right-wing (so obviously racist. Is flying the Union Jack actually considered offensive in England? Sad.) Their children are loud and occasionally destructive. They hold loud parties late at night and block a shared driveway with their vehicles. And now they’re planning to build a swimming pool that will ruin a view that means the world to one of their neighbors, a woman dying of a lingering disease.

When the neighbors call a meeting to air grievances, the Kentworthys don’t appear, which only raises tensions. Then Giles Kentworthy is found murdered with a crossbow, and the police call in Hawthorne and his old partner Dudley to consult.

I must give author Horowitz credit for masterful plotting. He’s a “fair play” mystery writer, providing the reader everything he needs to know to figure it out for himself, but diverting attention with expert sleight of hand. And the final solution was extremely clever – I didn’t see it coming at all. Then there was a dark coda that lent gravity to the whole exercise.

I liked Close to Death very much.