History Literature / ALineToKill

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.

* AssholeVictim: Charles le Mesurier is such a horrible man that just about every other character has a potential motive.

* {{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.

* 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.

* 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.
* 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.

** 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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]]

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* {{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.

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.

* 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.

* AssholeVictim: Charles Le Mesurier is such a horrible man that just about every other character has a potential motive.

* SecretRelationshipReveal:

* 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.

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.

* 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."

* 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.