In this story author Horowitz is planning to finish the series with Hawthorne having completed the three books he was contracted to write. Anthony Hawthorne is planning to move on to other projects, one being his new play, a thriller called ‘Mindgame’, which is about to open at the famous Vaudeville theatre in Shoreditch. The authorities can only hold Horowitz for 24 hours before charging him with murder, and they're waiting for the results of hair and DNA analysis to do just that. Then, almost miraculously, there's a computer glitch at the forensic science laboratory, and the cops have to let Anthony go until it's fixed. Horowitz and Hawthorne’s bromance is officially over – kaput, terminated, canceled, executed at dawn. Or, is it?

This is the fourth book in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series by author Anthony Horowitz. This is a very entertaining series and is slightly different from a lot of crime novels in that the author is one of the characters. In the series author Anthony Horowitz writes crime investigations that involve ex detective Daniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne is a very private person and a difficult person to get to know along with, which makes life difficult for Horowitz. Real-Person Cameo: In addition to writing himself as a main character, Horowitz includes in the book his real-life agent Hilda Starke and his wife Jill. (He hesitates to tell Jill about being arrested, and at the end Starke strong-arms him into agreeing to write more Hawthorne books.) Because while I didn't think this was quite as good as the last book, Hawthorne and Horowitz are firmly comfort-read characters for me at this point, and I can't see myself giving up this series. As Horowitz explains about the ill-fated “Mindgame” play and production, focal point for this new collaboration with Hawthorne, “since nothing was at it seemed, this should be literally true for the audience.” Clearly, words taken to heart in his writing of “The Twist of the Knife”. And the predictably inept police team, Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw and her assistant, DC Mills, are circling. All hopes for Horowitz rise and fall with what Hawthorne can deduce from the original cast of seven, production team and wherever the trail leads... in about 72 hours.Thrown into prison and brutally interrogated, Anthony is the prime suspect in Throsby's murder and as a second theatre critic is found to have died in mysterious circumstances, the net closes in. Ever more desperate, he realizes that only one man can help him. But will Hawthorne take the call?

Anyway, if you like this series of Horowitz and Hawthorne (remember, Magpie Murders (now a PBS series, too – which is excellent by the way)(Review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and The Word is Murder)(My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) you might enjoy this one, too – or not. Anthony is arrested by an old enemy . . . Detective Inspector Cara Grunshaw. She still carries a grudge from her failure to solve the case described in the second Hawthorne adventure, The Sentence is Death , and blames Anthony. Now she’s out for revenge.

The Twist of a Knife

Kensington Gore: Anthony uses this exact phrase to describe the bag of fake blood that Sky Palmer wears under her uniform, which is supposed to burst when she's stabbed at the end of Act I.