What I'm Listening to: The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I just finished the audiobook version of Anthony Horowitz's The Word is Murder, read by Rory Kinnear. The narrator does a great job. He's a solid voice, especially for that of Hawthorne.

I enjoyed the story. I was hesitant because last year I had noped out of The Magpie Murders by the same author after about 1 minute of listening.

I did have to grit my teeth and bear with the author's megalomania (he's the main character of the story). It is a phenomena I see a lot in famous clever people (Stephen Fry and Mark Gatiss come to mind), they are clever, very clever, and do brilliant things, but damn if they don't want you to know their Cleverness at every step. I mean, I know he did Foyle's War and I loved the first three seasons of it. I've never heard of Alex Rider, though.

The plot hook, however, a woman plans her own funeral and then is murdered 6 hours later, is so hook-y that I just had to know who did it. And it is brilliant. All the clues are there. Red herrings. The lot.

But the other thing is after reading a lot of fic, I have a different perspective. It's fic. Brilliant, long, self-insert, cleverly-craft fic, but at the end of the day, it's just fic (I thought that about "A Study in Emerald", too; if that wins a Hugo then AO3 definitely deserves a Hugo) and there are plenty of lovely people on the internet who crank that stuff out for free every day. And they don't have agents or meetings with Steven Spielberg that they feel the compelling urge to name-drop over and over and over. It's like if there was a guy with a great story and an equally great ego that needs public stroking by strangers.

Still, it's a great story told in a great voice.

Comments

[smallhobbit]

I do like Rory Kinnear - have seen him on stage a few times.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

He has a great voice.

[angelofthenorth]

The Alex rider novels are good yarns

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Good to know! I did like Foyle's War, too. And The House of Silk was a bit dark but good.

[ancientreader]

Ha! Your take cracks me up. Although perhaps my esteem for "A Study in Emerald" is higher than yours? Or, well, yes, of course it's fanfic, but ... I guess I don't object to an author's deciding to take their fic above the surface, as it were. I suppose men do it more often than women do, but I only get cranky about it when they pretend it's some higher art form. Gaiman isn't snotty about fic, at all, as far as I know.

On the other hand, I haven't had lunch, so it's possible that I also have no brain.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I liked "A Study in Emerald." The gotcha! worked 100% (probably because I was listening to it on audiobook and I didn't catch the actor's name was Vernet). But the first thought I had when I finished reading it was 'Oh, it's fic.' That's all it is. Very, very good fic, but just fic. And it won an award!

And Neil Gaiman (as far as I know, Good Omens and ASiE is all I've read) never put a writer named Neil Gaiman living next door to 221B Baker Street then go on and on and on for an entire chapter about meeting Sir Elton John the Old One or the Victorian equivalent or something. And that's what Horowitz does. I mean, it's a self-insert dick-stroking along with a corkin' good murder mystery. It's just a pity you have to swallow the first in order to get the second.

And yeah, there is that tweet in defense of fic by Gaiman, so as far as I know he's not a dick about it.

[autumnia]

I may have to check out this book now. Loved Foyle's War and thought Magpie Murders was pretty decent. Thanks for the rec!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Yes, I liked Foyle's War. And perhaps if I'd read Magpie Murders (or listened to more than 1 minute of audiobook) I might have a different opinion. I would recommend The Word is Murder.

[scfrankles]

I can't honestly say I've seen him in a lot of things but I have a fair amount of affection for Rory Kinnear - a talented man who also seems like a nice person.

I think I'm on the same wavelength with you about writing. Fanfic, original fic; written for money, written for fun - I don't see any major division any more. There is just good writing and poor writing. Someone doing it professionally doesn't automatically impress me any more because I've read so much astounding stuff written by people doing it as a hobby. And of course some people are writing stuff for money and some stuff for fun - there's not necessarily a divide there either.

And you're right - there's no difference between "proper" writing and fic. Neil Gaiman formally referred to his story as fanfiction - I think when someone was trying to get him to agree to look down on that kind of writing.

I did have to grit my teeth and bear with the author's megalomania (he's the main character of the story). It is a phenomena I see a lot in famous clever people (Stephen Fry and Mark Gatiss come to mind), they are clever, very clever, and do brilliant things, but damn if they don't want you to know their Cleverness at every step. This is a trait I strongly dislike. And I do think on the whole an author should be trying to remove themself from stories and not get in the reader's way ^__^

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I listen to a lot of voices and I like his. He has a completely different voice for the protagonist and Hawthorne (the detective) and I like them both. It's important that not everyone sound the same and that you recognize which character is talking.

I agree 100%. It wasn't a criticism of Neil Gaiman or "A Study in Emerald" (I think I've seen the tweet you're talking about and yeah I think he's not a dick about fanfic). It's probably more of a critique of the book-selling industry that seems a bit outdated when there's fanfic just as good as the stuff that's labelled 'best selling.' But I don't think I would've thought this, say, 5 years ago before I understood the range and depth of fic out there.

They you won't like this book because it's 1st person and Anthony Horowitz the writer is the main character (he's a self-insert Watson to Hawthorne's Holmes) and he talks about Foyle's War and the Alex Rider series and goes on and on and on about his meeting with Peter Jackson and Steve Spielberg and he talks about his agent and the novel-selling business, etcetera. You have to put up with knowing a lot of him to get to the actual story (which is super, don't get me wrong, but you have to put up with A LOT! And rich people problems, which is always grating).