Close to Death is a 2024 mystery novel by Anthony Horowitz. It is the fifth book in Horowitz's series about the brilliant fictional private detective, Daniel Hawthorne, and Hawthorne's clueless bumbling sidekick...Anthony Horowitz. Or rather, Horowitz's Author Avatar.
Only this time, Anthony Horowitz isn't tagging along as The Watson to Hawthorne, because this book is about one of Hawthorne's old cases. Anthony has a deadline for his next True Crime Daniel Hawthorne book, but unfortunately, Hawthorne does not have a suitable case going at the moment for he and Anthony to investigate. Hawthorne, rather reluctantly, suggests a past case that he has already solved: the Giles Kenworthy case.
Back in 2014, hedge fund manager Giles Kenworthy was murdered in his home, in a six-house gated community called Riverview Close, a crossbow arrow fired straight into his throat. As it turns out, Kenworthy was the sort of unpleasant neighbor everyone dislikes. May and Phyllis, the two little old ladies who live in one of the houses, believe Kenworthy killed their dog. Tom Beresford, a doctor, blames Kenworthy for the death of one of his patients—Kenworthy's car was blocking the driveway, which delayed Tom's exit. Adam Strauss, a chess grandmaster, blames Kenworthy's young sons for destroying a priceless chess set when they hit a cricket ball through Strauss's window. Andrew Pennnington, a widower, thinks Kenworthy destroyed the flowers Andrew planted as a memorial for his late wife. Roderick Browne, a dentist, is horrified at Kenworthy's plans to build a pool and jacuzzi in his backyard, as that will ruin the view of Browne's wife, Felicity, an invalid who spends all day in bed.
Is any of that a motive for murder? Or was the killing due to something completely different, like how Giles Kenworthy's wife Lydia was cheating on him? Or what about Sarah, the gardener, who is obviously up to something?
Hawthorne, as always, is highly secretive, doling out information in bits and pieces, telling Anthony that he solved the case but refusing to say who did it. A frustrated Anthony starts asking questions of his own. He has questions about both the case and Hawthorne's own Mysterious Past, and also about the even more mysterious John Dudley, another ex-police officer and Hawthorne's assistant on the Kenworthy investigation.
Tropes:
- Asshole Victim: Giles Kenworthy, who is a thoughtless, inconsiderate neighbor who angers the other residents of the cul-de-sac until they actually talk about killing him. Also kind of racist, and an adulterer. Partially subverted later when it's revealed that some of the uglier things Kenworthy did, like kill the dog or destroy the flower bed, actually were done by the murderer as part of the plot.
- Author Avatar: As usual, Anthony Horowitz appearing in his own novel. The main difference is that in this one he's offscreen for roughly half the book, the other half describing the original investigation in third person.
- Bad to the Last Drop: Anthony tastes grounds in the too-strong coffee that Andrew Pennington makes, but drinks it anyway.
- Blackmail: How Sarah Baines the ex-con got the job as a gardener at Riverview Close. She knew that May and Phyllis, pretending to be ex-nuns and harmless old ladies, are really ex-cons themselves who served long prison sentences for murdering their husbands.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: The third person narration mentions the "ample breast" of Sarah Baines, who is then described as "strikingly attractive."
- Carpet of Virility: Anthony is startled by the "chest hair and medallion" of Jean-Francois, Lydia's French lover.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Phyllis, jittery about the murder investigation, says "I need a burner!", and proceeds to roll her own cigarette. This is an early hint that Phyllis and May aren't what they seem.
- Continuity Nod: Many references to past events in the Hawthorne series, like how Anthony was arrested for the murder of Harriet Throsby in Hawthorne #4, A Twist of the Knife.
- Conversational Troping: The change to the formula, with Anthony Horowitz in the Framing Device explaining how he's writing his book as he learns about the cold case, results in a lot of this.
- Anthony talks about Point of View and how switching from first-person (what he'd used for the first four Hawthorne books, since he was describing events he observed himself), to third-person (for describing events of five years ago) forces him to basically invent inner thoughts for his characters.
- Anthony even uses the term Chekhov's Gun while explaining to Hawthorne how he took care to mention the crossbow in Roderick Browne's garage, but only as one of several items amongst the clutter.
- Anthony says he dislikes the Locked Room Mystery trope as it tends to overwhelm the rest of the story. (Naturally, the second murder is a locked-room mystery.)
- May and Phyllis run a specialty bookshop called The Tea Cosy that sells only Cozy Mysteries. They specifically tell Hawthorne that they dislike the blood, gore, and sex usually found in modern-day mystery novels.
- Anthony talks about Never One Murder in the context of True Crime—how it's no big deal if multiple people get killed off in an Agatha Christie book, but since he is writing true crime it's not that easy because there aren't that many murders in England and most of them aren't book worthy.
- Crazy-Prepared: Not only did Adam kill his first wife Wendy and get away with it, he went to extraordinary lengths to conceal it if anybody like Hawthorne connected the dots. Strauss is sending fake alimony payments (he gets them back), and has a woman in Hong Kong staged and ready to pretend to be Wendy Strauss if anyone calls, like DS Khan does. Hawthorne is left muttering about how Adam the chess grandmaster was plotting "ten moves ahead."
- Dies Wide Open: "His eyes were still wide open in shock" as Hawthorne, Dudley, and the cops gaze down on Giles Kenworthy's corpse.
- Disney Villain Death: Adam Strauss died six months after the Riverview Close murders, from falling off a hotel balcony. It turns out to have been a Vigilante Execution.
- Everybody Did It: Discussed Trope. It turns out that May and Phyllis got the idea to kill Giles Kenworthy like this after selling two copies of the Trope Maker novel, Murder on the Orient Express. The murder actually did not happen this way, as no one in the neighborhood was really willing to go that far—except for the actual killer, who started that conversation to cover his tracks.
- The Fellowship Has Ended: After Roderick Browne's death, the old friends and neighbors at Riverview Close went their separate ways. His wife Felicity stayed with her sister, the Beresfords moved away, as did May and Phyllis, and Adam Strauss fell to his death from a balcony six months after the murders. Andrew Pennington is the only resident left—except for Lydia Kenworthy, still in the house where her husband was murdered.
- Finally Found the Body: Subverted. Hawthorne deduces that Wendy Strauss did not divorce her husband and move back to Hong Kong: in fact Adam killed her and planted the magnolia tree over the burial spot. However, DS Khan falls for Adam's story and the woman who turns out to be impersonating Wendy, so the body is not found and is still under the tree, Adam and Teri having gotten away with murder.
- Framing Device: Anthony Horowitz, researching a new book in 2019, looks into an old Daniel Hawthorne case.
- Glasses Pull: When Anthony asks Andrew Pennington directly if he thought Roderick really killed Giles Kenworthy and himself, Pennington "took off his glasses and wiped them...then put them back on" before answering that yes, he still thinks Roderick committed a Murder-Suicide.
- History with Celebrity: Roderick Browne is a "dentist to the stars" who caters to a celebrity clientele. There's a picture of Roderick with Ewan McGregor in his waiting room, and another character mentions meeting McGregor there.
- Holding Both Sides of the Conversation: Andrew thinks he hears Adam and Roderick saying goodbye to each other as Adam leaves Roderick's house. In fact Roderick has already been drugged into unconsciousness and Adam is using an iPhone recording to fake a conversation.
- Inspector Lestrade: DS Khan, the investigating officer on the Kenworthy murder, who falls for all the red herrings and draws all the wrong conclusions. He is one of the more antagonistic sort, calling Hawthorne in with reluctance and taking petty pleasure in firing Hawthorne when the case appears to be closed. In the framing device, Khan meets with Anthony and threatens legal action if Anthony's book is too unflattering.
- Karma Houdini: While Adam Strauss died six months after the murders in a Vigilante Execution, his wife Teri, a coconspirator (even if Adam did the actual killing), gets away.
- Locked Room Mystery: The death of Roderick Browne, which DS Khan writes off as a suicide after Roderick is found dead inside a locked car which itself is inside a locked garage. (It turns out that Adam Strauss got in through the skylight, which he later glued shut to make it seem that the bolts had rusted. And he used a hose to simulate rain, which caused the windows to automatically shut.)
- Lonely Bachelor Pad: Andrew Pennington is a retired widower, not a bachelor, but the principle is the same. The narration says "It was immediately obvious that he lived alone. The house had a sense of emptiness."
- Mythology Gag: As Anthony's part of the story begins, he is putting the finishing touches on the fourth Daniel Hawthorne book, which he is calling Murder at the Vaudeville Theatre. His agent Hilda Starke says she doesn't like that title, and that Hawthorne has suggested "a much better one." The fourth Daniel Hawthorne novel was published as A Twist of the Knife.
- Never Suicide: Roderick Browne is found dead in his garage with what appears to be a suicide note, but Hawthorne doesn't buy it. Sure enough, it was a carefully planned murder in order to pin the Kenworthy murder on Roderick.
- Not the First Victim: And in fact, that first victim is the reason for the second and third victims. Adam Strauss and his wife Wendy didn't get divorced; he killed her and buried her where the magnolia tree now grows on the property. He killed Giles Kenworthy because the pool Giles wanted to install would have resulted in workers digging up the body.
- Obfuscating Disability: Adam Strauss is dismissed as a likely suspect because he was wearing a cast after spraining his ankle in a fall down some stairs. In fact the injury is fake.
- Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: "There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead" as Roderick Browne frantically denies any part of the murder. Detective Superintendent Khan takes this as a sure sign that he's guilty.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Not for the first time in the series, Daniel Hawthorne, who is generally a decent sort even if he is taciturn and antisocial, makes a bigoted comment. When he wonders if Teri used "her oriental brain" to come up with the plan, she calls him a racist. He shoots back "Better a racist than a murderer."
- Pun-Based Title: Close to Death, punning on the word "close" to describe a dead-end street in a residential neighborhood, like Riverview Close, as well as the fact that everyone there was, well, close to death. (This pun might be missed by Americans, who would call that sort of dead-end street a cul-de-sac.)
- Race Fetish: Adam Strauss's first wife Wendy and second wife Teri were both Chinese—and in fact they are cousins. (This turns out to be a bit of subtle Foreshadowing of the ending.)
- Real-Person Cameo: Another appearance on the page of Anthony Horowitz's Real Life agent Hilda Starke, who is pushing Anthony for a new book.
- Red Herring: One of the things that leads Hawthorne to conclude that Roderick Browne didn't kill himself was the fact that his cell phone was missing. While Roderick in fact didn't kill himself, it's revealed that Sarah stole the phone after the fact, because she's been sending him nude photos.
- Revisiting the Cold Case: Sort of. Hawthorne points Anthony to an old case, since he has nothing active—but the case was already solved, although Hawthorne is reluctant to tell Anthony how.
- The Snark Knight: Dudley, who is often tossing off snarky comments. When Pennington refuses to believe that the Kenworthys killed Ellery the dog, Dudley says "What did it do then? Commit suicide?"
- Switching P.O.V.: The opening chapters are each told from the POV of one of the suspects. The rest of the book bounces back between third-person POV following Hawthorne in 2014, and first-person from Anthony in 2019 as he writes his book.
- Take That!: Dudley says he never liked The Lord of the Rings. "Hobbits and talking trees? Not for me, thanks." This is a subtle Call-Back to Hawthorne #1, The Word Is Murder, when Hawthorne criticizes the movies to Peter Jackson's face and specifically says he didn't like the Ents.
- Tattooed Crook: Sarah Baines, as Hawthorne figures out when he recognizes her tattoos as prison tats rather than professionally done tattoos.
- A True Story in My Universe: The conceit for the entire Hawthorne series; in this one Anthony muses at length at the difficulties presented by writing "True Crime". Horowitz keeps this up all the way to the acknowledgments where he talks about how "Hawthorn and I sat down" to talk about the Kenworthy murder. (There's still the legally required This Is a Work of Fiction disclaimer buried at the end.)
- Vigilante Execution: The police suspect Hawthorne of murdering Adam Strauss, whom Hawthorne fingered for the Riverview Close murders, but can't prove it. It turns out that 1) Hawthorne was right and 2) it was Dudley who killed Strauss.
