The Sentence Is Death is a 2019 mystery novel by Anthony Horowitz.
It is the second book in Horowitz's series of Daniel Hawthorne Novels, which feature Anthony Horowitz himself, or rather Author Avatar "Anthony Horowitz", as The Watson to brilliant fictional detective Daniel Hawthorne. Anthony is on the set of a television production when Hawthorne approaches him with a new case for Hawthorne to solve and Anthony to write about. Richard Pryce, big-shot London divorce lawyer, has been found murdered in his home. Someone bashed his skull in with a £2000 bottle of wine and then fatally stabbed him in the neck with the broken bottle. The immediate suspect is Akira Anno, a literary novelist who was married to Pryce's client, Adrian Lockwood, and did badly in the divorce settlement. Anno poured a glass of wine over Pryce's head at a restaurant and then said she wished she had a bottle to strike him with.
Hawthorne goes digging and finds that other people had motives. There's Lockwood, who may have been hiding assets in the divorce settlement. There's Stephen Spencer, Pryce's husband; their marriage was floundering and Richard was about to write Stephen out of his will. There's also the matter of a tragic caving accident some years ago, in which Pryce barely escaped from a flooding cave, but his friend Charlie Richardson drowned. While Hawthorne dashes about London interviewing suspects, his faithful scribe Anthony Horowitz tags along.
Tropes:
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Susan Taylor had to go down to London after her husband Greg was killed in a train accident. Hawthorne asks her what she did when she stayed in the capital overnight, and she scornfully answers:"I went dancing and then out to dinner." She scowled. "What do you think I did? I sat on my own and counted the hours until I could leave."
- Asshole Victim: Richard. He only ever paid for anything for Davina to feel better about her husband's death, which he caused, and he refused to pay for his old friend's surgery that would have saved him from a slow and painful death.
- Author Avatar: Anthony Horowitz once again, appearing in the story as The Watson, chronicling the exploits of Daniel Hawthorne.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Colin, Davina Richardson's pimply 15-year-old son, seen a couple of times when Hawthorne and Anthony come over to grill his mother, a suspect in the Pryce killing. Colin is the killer, having gone over to Pryce's home and killed him after overhearing Greg Taylor admit to Davina that he and Richard abandoned Charlie in the cave to drown.
- Dies Wide Open: Anthony is bothered by the "staring eyes" of Richard Pryce when looking at the crime scene photos.
- Dirty Cop: Detective Inspector Kara Grunshaw, who blackmails Horowitz for information about Hawthorne's investigation and has him framed for shoplifting when he fails to live up to their deal.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: The killer is Colin, Davina Richardson's teenage son, who the reader has been given no reason to suspect until he is exposed.
- Edgy Backwards Chair-Sitting: DC Darren Mills, Detective Inspector Grunshaw's junior partner, sits down in chair "Christine Keeler-like" as Anthony spells out his theory of the case. He's trying to look cool, but Anthony already knows that he's an idiot and a thug.
- Evil Lawyer Joke: Adrian Lockwood tells the old joke about a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean ("a good start!") then howls with laughter. The fact that he laughs so much at his own joke demonstrates to Anthony what an egomaniac Lockwood is.
- Follow That Car: A mysterious man jumps in a taxi. Anthony gives chase, diving into another cab and yelling at the driver to "Follow that taxi!" Anthony then cringes, realizing what a cliche that line is.
- Funetik Aksent: Hawthorne and Anthony are greeted by a Yorkshireman with "Ey up?". Anthony then says he won't be attempting to reproduce Yorkshire speech because "it will look ridiculous on the page."
- Gray Rain of Depression: Lampshaded. Rain is pattering the windows when Hawthorne comes to visit Anthony in the hospital, and Anthony says they can't be partners anymore. Hawthorne says that Anthony's only saying that because he's depressed and he'd be in a better mood if the weather were better. Then Hawthorne points at the rain hitting the window and says "That's an example of that thing authors put in books when the weather makes a difference to the way people feel."
- Hypocrite: Akira Anno is a prima donna writer, an author of pretentious highbrow novels and poetry, who is scornful of Anthony Horowitz the popular fiction writer. It turns out that Anno writes shitty, near-pornographic fantasy novels under a pen name.
- Inspector Lestrade: DI Cara Grunshaw, the detective in charge of the case, is thuggish and extremely belligerent and is very angry that Hawthorne has been invited in to consult. Of course, she is also "thick" as Hawthorne points out which is why he was called in to begin with.
- Lady Drunk: Davina Richardson, who has never gotten over the loss of her husband 12 years ago, talks about how lonely she is, and is always drinking whenever Hawthorne and Anthony come over.
- Metafiction: The concept of the whole Hawthorne series, as Anthony Horowitz's Author Avatar "Anthony Horowitz" is The Watson in a book which is presented as a true crime story. "Horowitz" observes that he likes to create his own stories and be in control of his characters, when of course in Real Life he is.
- Playful Hacker: Kevin Chakraborty, who hacked into Anthony's phone just for fun. Kevin has been helping out Hawthorne by hacking into police computers and getting evidence that Hawthorne is not supposed to have.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Hawthorne again, as his homophobia from the first book gets an additional dose of bigotry when he refers to Stephen Spencer's Iranian boyfriend as "Ali Baba". Once again this nearly causes Anthony to abandon the book project.
- Real-Person Cameo: Anthony Horowitz's wife Jill and agent Hilda Starke pop up again as characters; neither of them like Anthony writing Hawthorne books. Dave Gallivan of the Cave Rescue Organization, who in-story led the search and rescue after the fatal Long Hole Cave incident in 2007, is also a real guy.
- Separated by a Common Language: Or not separated enough. Anthony berates himself for using the phrase "Have a nice day," considering it "an Americanism."
- Sherlock Scan: Hawthorne demonstrates his again when approaching Anthony about a new book, using his powers of observation to note that Anthony has lost his phone and that Foyle's War star Michael Kitchen has been demanding rewrites.
- Suicide, Not Accident: One of the main questions in the case is whether or not Gregory Taylor, the man who died when he fell onto some tracks in the London Underground the day before Pryce's murder, was also murdered and how that ties into the Pryce case. It turns out that Taylor killed himself, but only after doing everything he could to make it look like an accident so his wife would get the insurance.
- The Summation:
- Lampshaded when Anthony gives a cogent and reasonable summation of his view of the crime to DI Grunshaw, except that Anthony is totally wrong.
- Hawthorne later explains how things really went down when he visits Anthony in the hospital.
- Title Drop: Akira Anno wrote a haiku with the last like "The sentence is death." Anthony considers this damning evidence since it was poem 182 in her book of haikus, and someone painted "182" at the scene of the crime.
- A True Story in My Universe: As with all the books in the Daniel Hawthorne series, In-Universe Horowitz is writing a true crime account of Hawthorne's investigation.
- The Watson: Anthony does not like being Watson and decides to solve the case on his own. He is completely wrong, but Hawthorne lets Anthony take his solution to Detective Grunshaw so she can be embarrassed when she arrests the wrong person.
- You Just Ruined the Shot: Anthony is on the set of Foyle's War. A whole street has been decorated to look like 1947 London. Cameras roll—and then Hawthorne pulls up in a modern taxi, ruining the shot.
