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So it isn't a shock when Le Mesurier is murdered. But who did it? Maybe one of the other authors invited to the literary festival, like Marc Bellamy, chef and TV cooking show host who has hated le Mesurier since they were schoolmates together, or George Elkin, historian and lifelong resident of the island who is leading the opposition to the power line. Maybe Judith and Colin Masterson, the organizers of the literary festival, who seem to know more than they're telling. Or maybe Charles's bitter widow Helen, who gets all the money.
to:
So it isn't a shock when Le Mesurier is murdered. But who did it? Maybe one of the other authors invited to the literary festival, like Marc Bellamy, chef and TV cooking show host who has hated le Mesurier since they were schoolmates together, or George Elkin, historian and lifelong resident of the island who is leading the opposition to the power line. Maybe Judith and Colin Masterson, Matheson, the organizers of the literary festival, who seem to know more than they're telling. Or maybe Charles's bitter widow Helen, who gets all the money.
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* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: While Hawthorne has some sympathy for [[spoiler:the suicide of Anne Cleary's son]], he bluntly tells her that it doesn't justify murder.
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* LeaveBehindAPistol: Horowitz suspects that a variation was done for [[spoiler:Derek Abbott, who Hawthorne appears to have warned about his impending arrest the night before in order to give him time to kill himself as he said he'd do if he thought he was going back to prison.]] Unlike many examples this is done out of personal animosity rather than mercy.
* LetOffByTheDetective: Defied. [[spoiler:Anne Cleary]] appeals to Hawthorne for this but he bluntly refuses.
* LetOffByTheDetective: Defied. [[spoiler:Anne Cleary]] appeals to Hawthorne for this but he bluntly refuses.
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* SympatheticMurderer: [[spoiler:Anne Cleary]] murdered Charles le Mesurier [[spoiler:as revenge for the death of her son, who killed himself after his life was ruined by addiction to le Mesurier's gambling site.]] Earlier in the book, Horowitz ponders how most killers in Creator/AgathaChristie are this and prays that Derek Abbott isn't the killer because it would be impossible to make him even slightly sympathetic.
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* AssholeVictim: Charles le Mesurier is such a horrible man that just about every other character has a potential motive.
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* AssholeVictim: Charles le Mesurier is such a horrible man that just about every other character has a potential motive. To a lesser extent [[spoiler:his wife Helen, the second victim, who was involved in the blackmail plot.]] Also [[spoiler:Derek Abbott, the child pornographer Hawthorne shoved down the stairs when he was on the force, also involved in the blackmail plot and a generally loathsome man, who is tricked into killing himself by Hawthorne after being wrongly blamed for the murders.]]
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* {{Blackmail}}: George Elkin was correct when he guessed that le Mesurier must have had something on Colin Matheson to get him to support the power line. Charles got Helen, his own wife, to seduce Colin, and videotaped the sex, then threatened to tell Colin's wife if he didn't back their deal.
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* {{Blackmail}}: George Elkin was correct when he guessed that le Mesurier must have had something on Colin Matheson to get him to support the power line. Charles [[spoiler:Charles got Helen, his own wife, to seduce Colin, and videotaped the sex, then threatened to tell Colin's wife if he didn't back their deal.]]
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* ChekhovsGun: A couple of references are made to Kathryn Harris's over-large glasses. They're part of a disguise to mask her resemblance to Anne Cleary, who is her mother.
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* ChekhovsGun: A couple of references are made to Kathryn Harris's over-large glasses. They're [[spoiler:They're part of a disguise to mask her resemblance to Anne Cleary, who is her mother.]]
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* ConnectedAllAlong: Anne Cleary the children's book author, and Kathryn Harris the unfortunate drudge who works for Marc Bellamy, are revealed to be mother and daughter. Kathryn schemed to get her boss invited to the literary festival so that she and her mother could kill Charles le Mesurier.
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* ConnectedAllAlong: Anne [[spoiler:Anne Cleary the children's book author, and Kathryn Harris the unfortunate drudge who works for Marc Bellamy, are revealed to be mother and daughter. Kathryn schemed to get her boss invited to the literary festival so that she and her mother could kill Charles le Mesurier.]]
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* DrivenToSuicide: Derek Abbott kills himself rather than go back to jail for blackmail and possibly murder. Anthony realizes that Hawthorne deliberately told Abbott that the cops were going to arrest him, so that Abbott would kill himself.
* ExactWords: Anne Cleary says that her son William killed himself when he was away at school and he was "an addict." She does not explain that he was a ''gambling'' addict, which turns out to be key to the solution.
* FrenchMaid: Kathryn Harris wears a French maid costume while serving drinks at le Masurier's party. Anthony watches le Mesurier drunkenly hit on her and is disgusted, but it turns out to be deliberate by Kathryn, part of a HoneyPot scheme.
* ExactWords: Anne Cleary says that her son William killed himself when he was away at school and he was "an addict." She does not explain that he was a ''gambling'' addict, which turns out to be key to the solution.
* FrenchMaid: Kathryn Harris wears a French maid costume while serving drinks at le Masurier's party. Anthony watches le Mesurier drunkenly hit on her and is disgusted, but it turns out to be deliberate by Kathryn, part of a HoneyPot scheme.
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* DrivenToSuicide: Derek Abbott [[spoiler:Derek Abbott]] kills himself rather than go back to jail for blackmail and possibly murder. Anthony [[spoiler:Anthony realizes that Hawthorne deliberately told Abbott that the cops were going to arrest him, so that Abbott would kill himself.
himself.]]
* ExactWords: Anne Cleary says thather [[spoiler:her son William killed himself when he was away at school and he was "an addict." She does not explain that he was a ''gambling'' addict, which turns out to be key to the solution.
solution.]]
* FrenchMaid: Kathryn Harris wears a French maid costume while serving drinks at le Masurier's party. Anthony watches le Mesurier drunkenly hit on her and is disgusted,but [[spoiler:but it turns out to be deliberate by Kathryn, part of a HoneyPot scheme.]]
* HateSink: Both Charles le Mesurier, a man so deeply unpleasant that everyone on the island had reason to want him dead, and Derek Abbott, a child pornographer described by Horowitz as the most loathsome man he has ever met. Lampshaded in the latter case, as Horowitz dreads the idea of Abbott being guilty because he's so hateful that he doubts any of his readers will care if he did it.
* ExactWords: Anne Cleary says that
* FrenchMaid: Kathryn Harris wears a French maid costume while serving drinks at le Masurier's party. Anthony watches le Mesurier drunkenly hit on her and is disgusted,
* HateSink: Both Charles le Mesurier, a man so deeply unpleasant that everyone on the island had reason to want him dead, and Derek Abbott, a child pornographer described by Horowitz as the most loathsome man he has ever met. Lampshaded in the latter case, as Horowitz dreads the idea of Abbott being guilty because he's so hateful that he doubts any of his readers will care if he did it.
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** Sexy Helen le Mesurier seduced Colin Masterson in order to get incriminating sex footage to blackmail him with. It was her husband's idea.
** The ending reveals that Kathryn Harris put on a French maid costume for the party and lured Charles away with the promise of sex, only to kill him.
** The ending reveals that Kathryn Harris put on a French maid costume for the party and lured Charles away with the promise of sex, only to kill him.
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** Sexy Helen le Mesurier seduced Colin Masterson in Matheson [[spoiler:in order to get incriminating sex footage to blackmail him with. with.]] It was her husband's idea.
** The ending reveals thatKathryn [[spoiler:Kathryn Harris put on a French maid costume for the party and lured Charles away with the promise of sex, only to kill him.]]
** The ending reveals that
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* KarmaHoudini: Kathryn Harris beats the rap, acquitted of murder after Anne said Kathryn didn't know Anne was going to kill Charles, and wasn't involved in Anne's murder of Helen. Anthony doesn't buy it, thinking that Kathryn must have been there when Charles was killed and must have been the one to lure Helen to the cave, but Anne's death and Hawthorne's testimony as a character witness got her off the hook.
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* KarmaHoudini: Kathryn [[spoiler:Kathryn Harris beats the rap, acquitted of murder after Anne said Kathryn didn't know Anne was going to kill Charles, and wasn't involved in Anne's murder of Helen. Anthony doesn't buy it, thinking that Kathryn must have been there when Charles was killed and must have been the one to lure Helen to the cave, but Anne's death and Hawthorne's testimony as a character witness got her off the hook.]]
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* NeverGoingBackToPrison: Derek Abbott, who avoided a long sentence for child abuse and distribution of child pornography but got a shorter sentence for having child porn on his own computer, swears that he'll never go back to jail no matter what. He kills himself before the cops can arrest him for the murder of le Masurier.
* NeverOneMurder: Helen le Mesurier is murdered barely a day after her husband.
* NeverOneMurder: Helen le Mesurier is murdered barely a day after her husband.
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* NeverGoingBackToPrison: Derek Abbott, who avoided a long sentence for child abuse and distribution of child pornography but got a shorter sentence for having child porn on his own computer, swears that he'll never go back to jail no matter what. He [[spoiler:He kills himself before the cops can arrest him for the murder of le Masurier.
Mesurier.]]
* NeverOneMurder:Helen [[spoiler:Helen le Mesurier is murdered barely a day after her husband.]]
* NeverOneMurder:
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* PlagiarismInFiction: Anthony realizes that Maissa Lamar the poet stole the haiku she reads at her public reading. Subverted when it turns out that Lamar isn't a poet at all, she's an undercover cop.
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* PlagiarismInFiction: Anthony realizes that Maissa Lamar the poet stole the haiku she reads at her public reading. Subverted reading from Akira Anno, the feminist poet from ''Literature/TheSentenceIsDeath''. [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out that Lamar isn't a poet at all, she's an undercover cop.]]
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* RefugeInAudacity: Hawthorne calls out Anne and Kathryn as murderers, refusing their plea to be LetOffByTheDetective and telling them that they've got to answer for their crimes. Then he pulls out a copy of one of Anne's children's books and asks her to autograph it, as his son is a big fan. She does.
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* RefugeInAudacity: Hawthorne calls out Anne [[spoiler:Anne and Kathryn Kathryn]] as murderers, refusing their plea to be LetOffByTheDetective and telling them that they've got to answer for their crimes. Then he pulls [[spoiler:pulls out a copy of one of Anne's children's books and asks her to autograph it, as his son is a big fan. She does.]]
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* SequelHook: At the very end Anthony gets a postcard-from-the-grave from Derek Abbott, saying only "Ask Hawthorne about Reeth." (Reeth being a village in Yorkshire.)[[note]]In the next novel Anthony does ask Hawthorne about Reeth, but Hawthorne admits nothing.[[/note]]
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* SequelHook: At the very end Anthony gets a [[spoiler:a postcard-from-the-grave from Derek Abbott, saying only "Ask Hawthorne about Reeth." "]] (Reeth being a village in Yorkshire.)[[note]]In the next novel Anthony does ask Hawthorne about Reeth, but Hawthorne admits nothing.[[/note]]
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* TerminallyIllCriminal: Anne kills the two people she blames for her son being DrivenToSuicide after becoming addicted to gambling. She has a fatal heart disease and asks Hawthorne and Horowitz to spare her accomplice, her daughter Katherine, as a result. Hawthorne declines, but the jury clearly sees Katherine as a SympatheticMurderer and acquittes her. Anne dies before she can be sentenced.
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* TerminallyIllCriminal: Anne [[spoiler:Anne kills the two people she blames for her son being DrivenToSuicide after becoming addicted to gambling. She has a fatal heart disease and asks Hawthorne and Horowitz to spare her accomplice, her daughter Katherine, as a result. Hawthorne declines, but the jury clearly sees Katherine as a SympatheticMurderer and acquittes acquits her. Anne dies before she can be sentenced.]]
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* TwoDunIt: Anne Cleary and Kathryn Harris, who are revealed to be mother and daughter, worked together to kill Charles and probably also Helen, although both of them insist that Anne killed Helen all alone.
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* TwoDunIt: Anne [[spoiler:Anne Cleary and Kathryn Harris, who are revealed to be mother and daughter, worked together to kill Charles and probably also Helen, although both of them insist that Anne killed Helen all alone.]]
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* UndercoverCopReveal: Maissa Lamar the poet turns out to not be a poet at all. She and the mysterious blond-haired man who was following her are French undercover cops who were on Alderney to investigate accusations of corruption related to the NAB high-voltage power line. This trope is played out differently than how it usually goes, when Hawthorne unmasks them both as bumbling dopes who found le Mesurier's body but didn't tell anybody, thus letting the scene go cold, and also left bloody footprints and a smear of blood in le Mesurier's office, further confusing the murder investigation.
to:
* UndercoverCopReveal: Maissa [[spoiler:Maissa Lamar the poet poet]] turns out to not be a poet [[spoiler:a poet]] at all. She and the mysterious blond-haired man who was following her are French undercover cops who were on Alderney to investigate accusations of corruption related to the NAB high-voltage power line. This trope is played out differently than how it usually goes, when Hawthorne unmasks them both as bumbling dopes who found le Mesurier's body but didn't tell anybody, thus letting the scene go cold, and also left bloody footprints and a smear of blood in le Mesurier's office, further confusing the murder investigation.
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* YourDaysAreNumbered: Anne Cleary reveals one reason why she was driven to her murder scheme: she has serious heart disease and could die at any moment. She has a heart attack and dies barely a month after she's arrested.
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* YourDaysAreNumbered: Anne [[spoiler:Anne Cleary reveals one reason why she was driven to her murder scheme: she has serious heart disease and could die at any moment. She has a heart attack and dies barely a month after she's arrested.]]
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* {{Blackmail}}: George Elkin was correct when he guessed that le Mesurier must have had something on Colin Masterson to get him to support the power line. Charles got Helen, his own wife, to seduce Colin, and videotaped the sex, then threatened to tell Colin's wife if he didn't back their deal.
to:
* {{Blackmail}}: George Elkin was correct when he guessed that le Mesurier must have had something on Colin Masterson Matheson to get him to support the power line. Charles got Helen, his own wife, to seduce Colin, and videotaped the sex, then threatened to tell Colin's wife if he didn't back their deal.
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* SelfDeprecation: As usual, Horowitz's version of himself misses almost every clue and screws up Hawthorne's investigation by SayingTooMuch. It's also repeatedly established that almost nobody at the literary festival has heard of him or thinks his books are any good, with the only apparent exception being the child pornographer Derek Abbott who Horowitz is annoyed to realize has a copy of [[Literature/{{Moriarty}} one of his books]] in his house.
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* TerminallyIllCriminal: Anne kills the two people she blames for her son being DrivenToSuicide after becoming addicted to gambling. She has a fatal heart disease and asks Hawthorne and Horowitz to spare her accomplice, her daughter Katherine, as a result. Hawthorne declines, but the jury clearly sees Katherine as a SympatheticMurderer and acquittes her. Anne dies before she can be sentenced.
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3ef94bcc_2cd1_4c0b_8e6b_c9423e668a97.jpeg]]
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Once again, Horowitz appears in-story as himself, TheWatson to and true-crime writer for brilliant detective Daniel Hawthorne. Horowitz and Hawthorne go to Alderney in the Channel Islands as part of a writers' festival, in order to promote their forthcoming Daniel Hawthorne book. The festival is being sponsored by one Charles le Mesurier, owner of an online gambling site that has made him extremely rich. Le Mesurier is also an irredeemable asshole, a serial adulterer, a sexual harasser, a cruel bully, and an all-around {{Jerkass}}. He has also managed to piss off many of the people in Alderney by brokering the installation of a high-voltage power line from France to Britain via Alderney, one which many residents think will ruin the beauty of the island.
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Once again, Horowitz appears in-story as himself, TheWatson to and true-crime writer for brilliant detective Daniel Hawthorne. Horowitz and Hawthorne go to Alderney in the Channel Islands UsefulNotes/TheChannelIslands as part of a writers' festival, in order to promote their forthcoming Daniel Hawthorne book. The festival is being sponsored by one Charles le Mesurier, owner of an online gambling site that has made him extremely rich. Le Mesurier is also an irredeemable asshole, a serial adulterer, a sexual harasser, a cruel bully, and an all-around {{Jerkass}}. He has also managed to piss off many of the people in Alderney by brokering the installation of a high-voltage power line from France to Britain via Alderney, one which many residents think will ruin the beauty of the island.
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* RefugeInAudacity: Hawthorne calls out Anne and Kathryn as murderers, refusing their plea to be LetOffByTheDetective and telling them that they've got to answer for their crimes. Then he pulls out a copy of one of Anne's children's books and asks her to autograph it, as his son is a big fan. She does.
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* HoneyPot: Sexy Helen le Mesurier seduced Colin Masterson in order to get incriminating sex footage to blackmail him with. It was her husband's idea.
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* HoneyPot: HoneyPot:
** Sexy Helen le Mesurier seduced Colin Masterson in order to get incriminating sex footage to blackmail him with. It was her husband'sidea.idea.
** The ending reveals that Kathryn Harris put on a French maid costume for the party and lured Charles away with the promise of sex, only to kill him.
** Sexy Helen le Mesurier seduced Colin Masterson in order to get incriminating sex footage to blackmail him with. It was her husband's
** The ending reveals that Kathryn Harris put on a French maid costume for the party and lured Charles away with the promise of sex, only to kill him.
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* AssholeVictim: Charles Le Mesurier is such a horrible man that just about every other character has a potential motive.
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* AceOfSpades: The night before he's murdered Charles le Mesurier finds an Ace of Spades on his car windshield. He thinks it's lucky but Anthony knows it's "the death card." The use of a playing card also turns out to be a ChekhovsGun as the motive for the murder relates to le Mesurier being the owner of a gambling website.
* AssholeVictim: CharlesLe le Mesurier is such a horrible man that just about every other character has a potential motive.
* AssholeVictim: Charles
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* KarmaHoudini: Kathryn Harris beats the rap, acquitted of murder after Anne said Kathryn didn't know Anne was going to kill Charles, and wasn't involved in Anne's murder of Helen. Anthony doesn't buy it, thinking that Kathryn must have been there when Charles was killed and must have been the one to lure Helen to the cave, but Anne's death and Hawthorne's testimony as a character witness got her off the hook.
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* SecretRelationshipReveal:
to:
* SecretRelationshipReveal: SequelHook: At the very end Anthony gets a postcard-from-the-grave from Derek Abbott, saying only "Ask Hawthorne about Reeth." (Reeth being a village in Yorkshire.)[[note]]In the next novel Anthony does ask Hawthorne about Reeth, but Hawthorne admits nothing.[[/note]]
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* ConnectedAllAlong: Anne Cleary the children's book author, and Kathryn Harris the unfortunate drudge who works for Marc Bellamy, are revealed to be mother and daughter. Kathryn schemed to get her boss invited to the literary festival so that she and her mother could kill Charles le Mesurier.
* DrivenToSuicide: Derek Abbott kills himself rather than go back to jail for blackmail and possibly murder. Anthony realizes that Hawthorne deliberately told Abbott that the cops were going to arrest him, so that Abbott would kill himself.
* NeverGoingBackToPrison: Derek Abbott, who avoided a long sentence for child abuse and distribution of child pornography but got a shorter sentence for having child porn on his own computer, swears that he'll never go back to jail no matter what. He kills himself before the cops can arrest him for the murder of le Masurier.
* NeverOneMurder: Helen le Mesurier is murdered barely a day after her husband.
* NeverOneMurder: Helen le Mesurier is murdered barely a day after her husband.
* SecretRelationshipReveal:
* TwoDunIt: Anne Cleary and Kathryn Harris, who are revealed to be mother and daughter, worked together to kill Charles and probably also Helen, although both of them insist that Anne killed Helen all alone.
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* YouKnowTheOne: Early in the book Anthony mentions the first two Hawthorne books, involving the murder of one Diana Cowper and then the murder of a divorce lawyer, without mentioning the killer in either.
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* YouKnowTheOne: Early in the book Anthony mentions the first two Hawthorne books, involving the murder of one Diana Cowper and then the murder of a divorce lawyer, without mentioning the killer in either.either.
* YourDaysAreNumbered: Anne Cleary reveals one reason why she was driven to her murder scheme: she has serious heart disease and could die at any moment. She has a heart attack and dies barely a month after she's arrested.
* YourDaysAreNumbered: Anne Cleary reveals one reason why she was driven to her murder scheme: she has serious heart disease and could die at any moment. She has a heart attack and dies barely a month after she's arrested.
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So it isn't a shock when Le Mesurier is murdered. But who did it? Maybe one of the other authors invited to the literary festival, like Marc Bellamy, chef and TV cooking show host who has hated le Mesurier since they were schoolmates together, or George Elkin, historian and lifelong resident of the island who is leading the opposition to the power line. Maybe Judith and Colin Masterson, the organizers of the literary festival, who seem to know more than they're telling. Or maybe Charles's bitter widow Helen, who gets all the money. As the inexperienced cops bumble around, Hawthorne does the real investigating, his faithful scribe Anthony Horowitz tagging along.
to:
So it isn't a shock when Le Mesurier is murdered. But who did it? Maybe one of the other authors invited to the literary festival, like Marc Bellamy, chef and TV cooking show host who has hated le Mesurier since they were schoolmates together, or George Elkin, historian and lifelong resident of the island who is leading the opposition to the power line. Maybe Judith and Colin Masterson, the organizers of the literary festival, who seem to know more than they're telling. Or maybe Charles's bitter widow Helen, who gets all the money.
As the inexperienced cops bumble around, Hawthorne does the real investigating, his faithful scribe Anthony Horowitz taggingalong.
along. Anthony eventually finds out that Hawthorne had his own motive for going to Alderney, relating to Derek Abbott, a pedophile and child pornographer who got a light sentence after Hawthorne couldn't make the case, and who is now living on Alderney and worked for le Mesurier.
As the inexperienced cops bumble around, Hawthorne does the real investigating, his faithful scribe Anthony Horowitz tagging
* {{Blackmail}}: George Elkin was correct when he guessed that le Mesurier must have had something on Colin Masterson to get him to support the power line. Charles got Helen, his own wife, to seduce Colin, and videotaped the sex, then threatened to tell Colin's wife if he didn't back their deal.
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* BuxomBeautyStandard: Helen le Mesurier may be bitchy, but Anthony still can't help but notice her party dress that "covered very little of her body", comparing her to Creator/MarilynMonroe while noting "the generous curves of her body."
to:
* BuxomBeautyStandard: Helen le Mesurier may be bitchy, but Anthony still can't help but notice her party dress that "covered very little of her body", little", comparing her to Creator/MarilynMonroe while noting "the generous curves of her body."
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* HoneyPot: Sexy Helen le Mesurier seduced Colin Masterson in order to get incriminating sex footage to blackmail him with. It was her husband's idea.
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* UndercoverCopReveal: Maissa Lamar the poet turns out to not be a poet at all. She and the mysterious blond-haired man who was following her are French undercover cops who were on Alderney to investigate accusations of corruption related to the NAB high-voltage power line. This trope is played out differently than how it usually goes, when Hawthorne unmasks them both as bumbling dopes who found le Mesurier's body but didn't tell anybody, thus letting the scene go cold, and also left bloody footprints and a smear of blood in le Mesurier's office, further confusing the murder investigation.
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* InspectorLestrade: Deputy Chief Jonathan Torode, sent over from Guernsey as Alderney is so small it doesn't even have cops. He is clearly out of his depth while also resenting Hawthorne's presence. The epilogue notes that he was fired for incompetence.
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* LiteralMetaphor: Anthony and Hawthorne catch George Elkin painting anti-power line "BAN NAB" protest signs. Anthony sees the red paint on Elkin's hand and thinks that they caught him "quite literally, red-handed."
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* PlagiarismInFiction: Anthony realizes that Maissa Lamar the poet stole the haiku she reads at her public reading. Subverted when it turns out that Lamar isn't a poet at all, she's an undercover cop.
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* TitleDrop: Hawthorne notes that there's something like a dozen people with reason to kill Charles le Mesurier and says "It's a line to kill if ever I saw one."
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* CigaretteOfAnxiety: A jittery Helen demands a cigarette and gets one from Hawthorne, the morning her husband is found dead.
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* FrenchMaid: Kathryn Harris wears a French maid costume while serving drinks at le Masurier's party. Anthony watches le Mesurier drunkenly hit on her and is disgusted, but it turns out to be deliberate by Kathryn, part of a HoneyPot scheme.
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* BuxomBeautyStandard: Helen le Mesurier may be bitchy, but Anthony still can't help but notice her party dress that "covered very little of her body", comparing her to Creator/MarilynMonroe while noting "the generous curves of her body."
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* ClosedCircle: Alderney, a rather small island, although played with in that the suspects actually do leave after three days and aren't trapped there the whole time.
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* LifeOrDeathQuestion: Le Mesurier is given the choice of calling a coin toss to save his life. But not really, because the killers admitted they were going to murder him regardless.
* NarrativeProfanityFilter: When Derek Abbott flings an obscenity at Hawthorne, it's rendered "I won't talk to you because you're a ***."
-->Swear words bore me. I don't like using them. And he had used one that was unprintable.
* ObfuscatingDisability: Elizabeth Lovell is just pretending to be blind--or rather, she ''used'' to be blind, but eye surgery restored her sight, and she's kept up the pretense as part of her BlindSeer, PhonyPsychic racket.
* NarrativeProfanityFilter: When Derek Abbott flings an obscenity at Hawthorne, it's rendered "I won't talk to you because you're a ***."
-->Swear words bore me. I don't like using them. And he had used one that was unprintable.
* ObfuscatingDisability: Elizabeth Lovell is just pretending to be blind--or rather, she ''used'' to be blind, but eye surgery restored her sight, and she's kept up the pretense as part of her BlindSeer, PhonyPsychic racket.
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* AssholeVictim: Charles Le Mesurier is such a horrible man that just about every other character has a potential motive.
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* WhoMurderedTheAsshole: Charles Le Mesurier, the school bully, faithless husband, sexual harasser, blackmailer, and all-around creep, is murdered. (Naturally, the killer is a character who appeared to have no problem at all with Le Mesurier.)
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* BlindPeopleWearSunglasses: Anthony notes that Elizabeth Lovell has her back to the window to the ocean but then observes that "she had no interest in the view: her round black glasses spoke for themselves."
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* ChekhovsGun: A couple of references are made to Kathryn Harris's over-large glasses. They're part of a disguise to mask her resemblance to Anne Cleary, who is her mother.
* DeathOfAChild: In the backstory. Anne Cleary is haunted by the suicide of her son, who died when he was in college.
* ExactWords: Anne Cleary says that her son William killed himself when he was away at school and he was "an addict." She does not explain that he was a ''gambling'' addict, which turns out to be key to the solution.
* DeathOfAChild: In the backstory. Anne Cleary is haunted by the suicide of her son, who died when he was in college.
* ExactWords: Anne Cleary says that her son William killed himself when he was away at school and he was "an addict." She does not explain that he was a ''gambling'' addict, which turns out to be key to the solution.
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* PhonyPsychic: Elizabeth Lovell isn't even that subtle about it, practicing obvious cold reading techniques while at the same time doing research in advance. Anthony and Hawthorne both see through her and Anthony is sickened when Elizabeth pretends to be talking to the spirit of Anne Cleary's dead son.
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* SexySecretary: Kathryn Harris, Marc Bellamy's assistant and gofer, is "very attractive, slim, with grey eyes and sand-coloured hair." At the party, which Bellamy is catering, she wears a sexy French maid outfit. Le Mesurier the dirtbag hits on her more than once.
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Changed line(s) 10 (click to see context) from:
* AuthorAvatar: The conceit of the whole Daniel Hawthorne series, as Anthony Horowitz writes himself in as a character, the Watson who is continually irritated by Hawthorne's refusal to tell what he's thinking.
to:
* AuthorAvatar: The conceit of the whole Daniel Hawthorne series, as Anthony Horowitz writes himself in as a character, the Watson who is continually irritated by Hawthorne's refusal to tell what he's thinking.thinking.
* BlindSeer: One of the authors at the literary festival, Elizabeth Lovell, is a blind woman who claims that going blind gave her the power to talk to spirits on "the other side of the mirror", aka the afterlife. She calls it "blind sight". Subverted in that Daniel and Anthony are both positive she's faking, and they're right. Double subverted when it turns out she isn't even blind.
* {{Perfumigation}}: Played for a minor Hawthorne gotcha. Anthony smells editor Graham Lucas's aftershave and doesn't like it. In the next chapter Hawthorne deduces that Lewis is actually having an affair with publicity director Tamara Moore, because that "aftershave" was actually the scent of her perfume.
* RealPersonCameo: Hilda Starke, Anthony Horowitz's agent in real life, pops up as his agent in this book. Anthony is mildly peeved at her for not giving his career enough attention.
* ATrueStoryInMyUniverse: InUniverse, Horowitz is Daniel Hawthorne's "biographer" and the Hawthorne books are true crime stories. When this one seems to be ending with the most obvious and least interesting suspect as the killer, and with that suspect committing suicide, Anthony worries that he might not have a book.
* YouKnowTheOne: Early in the book Anthony mentions the first two Hawthorne books, involving the murder of one Diana Cowper and then the murder of a divorce lawyer, without mentioning the killer in either.
* BlindSeer: One of the authors at the literary festival, Elizabeth Lovell, is a blind woman who claims that going blind gave her the power to talk to spirits on "the other side of the mirror", aka the afterlife. She calls it "blind sight". Subverted in that Daniel and Anthony are both positive she's faking, and they're right. Double subverted when it turns out she isn't even blind.
* {{Perfumigation}}: Played for a minor Hawthorne gotcha. Anthony smells editor Graham Lucas's aftershave and doesn't like it. In the next chapter Hawthorne deduces that Lewis is actually having an affair with publicity director Tamara Moore, because that "aftershave" was actually the scent of her perfume.
* RealPersonCameo: Hilda Starke, Anthony Horowitz's agent in real life, pops up as his agent in this book. Anthony is mildly peeved at her for not giving his career enough attention.
* ATrueStoryInMyUniverse: InUniverse, Horowitz is Daniel Hawthorne's "biographer" and the Hawthorne books are true crime stories. When this one seems to be ending with the most obvious and least interesting suspect as the killer, and with that suspect committing suicide, Anthony worries that he might not have a book.
* YouKnowTheOne: Early in the book Anthony mentions the first two Hawthorne books, involving the murder of one Diana Cowper and then the murder of a divorce lawyer, without mentioning the killer in either.
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Work in progress, much more to come
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''A Line to Kill'' is a 2021 mystery novel by Creator/AnthonyHorowitz. It is the third in his series of Literature/DanielHawthorneNovels.
Once again, Horowitz appears in-story as himself, TheWatson to and true-crime writer for brilliant detective Daniel Hawthorne. Horowitz and Hawthorne go to Alderney in the Channel Islands as part of a writers' festival, in order to promote their forthcoming Daniel Hawthorne book. The festival is being sponsored by one Charles le Mesurier, owner of an online gambling site that has made him extremely rich. Le Mesurier is also an irredeemable asshole, a serial adulterer, a sexual harasser, a cruel bully, and an all-around {{Jerkass}}. He has also managed to piss off many of the people in Alderney by brokering the installation of a high-voltage power line from France to Britain via Alderney, one which many residents think will ruin the beauty of the island.
So it isn't a shock when Le Mesurier is murdered. But who did it? Maybe one of the other authors invited to the literary festival, like Marc Bellamy, chef and TV cooking show host who has hated le Mesurier since they were schoolmates together, or George Elkin, historian and lifelong resident of the island who is leading the opposition to the power line. Maybe Judith and Colin Masterson, the organizers of the literary festival, who seem to know more than they're telling. Or maybe Charles's bitter widow Helen, who gets all the money. As the inexperienced cops bumble around, Hawthorne does the real investigating, his faithful scribe Anthony Horowitz tagging along.
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!!Tropes:
* AuthorAvatar: The conceit of the whole Daniel Hawthorne series, as Anthony Horowitz writes himself in as a character, the Watson who is continually irritated by Hawthorne's refusal to tell what he's thinking.
Once again, Horowitz appears in-story as himself, TheWatson to and true-crime writer for brilliant detective Daniel Hawthorne. Horowitz and Hawthorne go to Alderney in the Channel Islands as part of a writers' festival, in order to promote their forthcoming Daniel Hawthorne book. The festival is being sponsored by one Charles le Mesurier, owner of an online gambling site that has made him extremely rich. Le Mesurier is also an irredeemable asshole, a serial adulterer, a sexual harasser, a cruel bully, and an all-around {{Jerkass}}. He has also managed to piss off many of the people in Alderney by brokering the installation of a high-voltage power line from France to Britain via Alderney, one which many residents think will ruin the beauty of the island.
So it isn't a shock when Le Mesurier is murdered. But who did it? Maybe one of the other authors invited to the literary festival, like Marc Bellamy, chef and TV cooking show host who has hated le Mesurier since they were schoolmates together, or George Elkin, historian and lifelong resident of the island who is leading the opposition to the power line. Maybe Judith and Colin Masterson, the organizers of the literary festival, who seem to know more than they're telling. Or maybe Charles's bitter widow Helen, who gets all the money. As the inexperienced cops bumble around, Hawthorne does the real investigating, his faithful scribe Anthony Horowitz tagging along.
----
!!Tropes:
* AuthorAvatar: The conceit of the whole Daniel Hawthorne series, as Anthony Horowitz writes himself in as a character, the Watson who is continually irritated by Hawthorne's refusal to tell what he's thinking.