What a great mystery – you get two books for the price of one, and though the parallels are (not so) subtly spelt out for you, there is more than enough whodunnitness to keep you interested. Anthony Horowitz writes the way I would like to write- wittily, observantly, intelligently. He’s clever and fun, and is wryly detached enough from his characters that you feel you are sitting on a train with him, covertly watching and discussing them. A very good read indeed.

I wrote the above on Goodreads and then it came up that I had read the previous book in the series. I hadn’t remembered that at all. I quite enjoyed it, I notice, but not as much. Maybe Horowitz had read my review and took my advice on board.

This is what I wrote four years ago!

A vast whopper of a book. And of a book within the book. I read it in hardback, which is very heavy on the hands. It’s printed in different fonts depending on which “book” is in front of you. I found this annoying as I think I could have worked it out for myself. But I enjoyed the parallels when they came to light and the whodunnit ending was actually satisfying. The in-jokes were quite fun too. Too long though, and as I said, too heavy.

I have read one or two of Horowitz’s other books. He’s very versatile. And very prolific. It’s as much as I can do to knock out a couple of hundred words a week. How does one begin to even write a novel?