Alderney setting for novelist’s new murder mystery
A LITERARY festival in Alderney is forming the backdrop of a new murder mystery by a best-selling author.
Anthony Horowitz, who is well known for writing the Alex Rider series, visited the northern isle in 2019 for the Young People Literary Festival. When he attended St Anne’s School, he commented ‘I think I’ll bring my Detective Hawthorne and I will set a crime here on Alderney.’
And two years later, a publication date has been set for A Line About Killing – a new murder mystery set in Alderney.
Details from publisher Penguin may well look familiar to Alderney residents.
In the synopsis, it states the book is set at a new literary festival, with private investigator Daniel Hawthorne travelling to the island to talk about his new book with the book’s actual writer of the book, Anthony Horowitz.
‘Very soon they discover that not all is as it should be,’ the synopsis states.
‘Alderney is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour.’
This might be a reference to the controversial Fab link – a proposed cable link from UK to France, which would pass through Alderney and caused controversy when it was revealed it could pass through a Second World War burial ground.
The story centres around the festival’s wealthy sponsor being found brutally killed.
In 2019, Mr Horowitz said Alderney would be an interesting setting for a murder mystery.
‘As I walked up and down Victoria Street and everybody smiling at me, it’s also in the knowledge that from the moment I arrived on Alderney pretty much everything I’ve done has been seen by someone,’ he said on the 2019 visit.
‘Everyone knows where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing – and that for a crime story is very interesting and useful.’
Mr Horowitz is also well-known for writing for television, including Midsomer Murders, Foyle’s War and Agatha Christie’s Poirot.
A Line About Killing is set to be released in August.
