Minchen > Recent Status Updates

By the time I reached the other side of the river, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

They could make me look like a complete idiot if they wanted. On the other hand, if I wrote the book, I would have control.

And yet...If I walked away, Hawthorne would just go to another writer and what would be the result of that? I’d end up as a minor character, nothing more than a sidekick in someone else’s book, which would actually be considerably worse than being a real character in one of my own.

Hawthorne: “Tony...”
Horowitz: “That’s not my name. I’m Anthony. Nobody ever calls me Tony. And you can forget the whole thing. It was a bad idea and it nearly got me killed. I should never have listened to you in the first place. I’m not going to do it.”

Horowitz: “She was at Hay-on-Wye, at the literary festival, two days after you came to see me. Shesaid my books were unreal and irrelevant. She was the reason why...You put her up to it!”
Hawthorne: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He was looking at me with innocent, even child-like eyes but I wasn’t having any of it.

I knew this woman. I had seen her before. And then I remembered.
Horowitz: “You bastard! You fucking bastard.”
Hawthorne: “What?”
Horowitz: “Is this your wife?”
Hawthorne: “Yes.”
Horowitz: “I’ve met her.”
Hawthorne: “I don’t think so.”

(>>>)
Hawthorne: “It’ll do, I suppose.”
Horowitz: “You don’t sound convinced.”
Hawthorne: “It’s just a bit poncy. It’s not something I’d read on the beach.”
Horowitz: “Do you ever go to the beach?”
He didn’t answer.

(>>>)
I was saying that people read detective stories because they were interested in the characters and you disagreed. >The word is murder. That’s what matters.< That’s what you said.”
Hawthorne: “And...?”
Horowitz: “>The word is murder.< I thought that would make a good title. After all, I’m a writer, you’re a detective. That’s what it’s all about.”
(>>>)

Horowitz: “I think I may have a title.”
Hawthorne: “What’s wrong with ‘Hawthorne Investigates’?”
Horowitz: “We’ve already had that discussion.”
Hawthorne: “What the?”
Horowitz: “I was going through my notes this morning and I came upon something you said to me when we first met in Clerkwell, when you asked me to write about you. (>>>)

...the door opened and there he was, staring at me with a look of bemusement on his face, wearing the same suit he always wore. Hawthorne ‘at home’.
Hawthorne: “Tony! How did you find me?”
Horowitz: “I have my methods.”

I was trying to find the ‘voice’ of the book. If I was really going to appear in it, I had to be sure that I wasn’t too obtrusive, that I didn’t get in the way.

Looking through my notes and, iPhone recordings, I was relieved to see that I hadn’t been completely obtuse. (...) All in all, I hadn’t done too badly (...) in fact, I would have said that at least seventy-five per cent of the most important clues were written down in my notebook. It was just that I hadn’t quite realized their significance.

The question I had to ask myself was – how closely should I stick to the facts?

This time everything had been given to me and it was more a question of configuration than actual creation and I wasn’t entirely happy with some of the material. In all honesty, I wouldn’t have chosen to write about a spoiled Hollywood actor (...). But unfortunately it was Damian Cowper who had been killed and I was stuck with him

Normally, when I have an idea for a book, it will sit in my head for at least a year before I start writing. If it’s a murder mystery, the starting point will be the murder itself. Someone kills somebody else for a reason. That’s the core of the matter. I will create those characters and gradually build the world around them, drawing links between the various suspects...

Hawthorne: “Look mate, I’ve been meaning to say. ...I lied to you. (...) You were having a go at me and I was pissed off with you – but I didn’t speak to any other writers about this book. You were the only one I approached.”
Horowitz: “Thank you.”

Hawthorne: “I was worried about you.”
Horowitz: “Thank you.”
Hawthorne: “Well, who’s going to write the book if it isn’t you?” He suddenly looked sheepish. It was something I’d not seen before and it gave me a glimpse of the child he had been, the one who was still lurking inside the man he had become.

Hawthorne was paid by the day. The wider the investigation, the more places he visited, the more he earned. It may be stretching it but it was in his best interest to examine every possibility.

Horowitz: “The phone auto corrected!”
Hawthorne: “That’s right, mate. >I have seen the boy who was Laertes and I’m afraid.< She couldn’t remember his real name but she wanted her son to know who it was in her living room.”

Hawthorne: “Suddenly she recognises Robert Cornwallis and remembers where she has seen him before. (...) But she knows that he’s Dan Roberts and maybe there’s something about his manner that’s a little bit creepy and she’s afraid. She knows that he’s come to do her harm. (...) At the same time, as quickly as she can, Diana sends her son a text.”

Horowitz: “But what about the text that Diana Cowper sent?” (...)

Horowitz: “So who attacked Nigel Weston? Why did you say that was my fault?”
Hawthorne: “Because it was. (...) When we interviewed Robert Cornwallis that first time, you asked him if Diana Cowper had said anything about Timothy Godwin. (...) It was a rookie error, mate. What you did was, you told him that we were interested in the accident that had happened in Deal. And so he decided to use it to misdirect us.

Hawthorne: “Barbara told us that he’d seen everything Damian had done. She thought he was a fan. She didn’t realise that he was actually obsessing about him. All he ever thought about was his failed acting career. He’d only ever had one success and he even named his kids after it.”
Horowitz: “Toby, Sebastian and Andrew. They’re all characters in ‘Twelfth Night’. Why hadn’t I seen it before?”

Hawthorne: “If you want to get rid of a body, I suppose being an undertaker is certainly a help.”

Horowitz: “She didn’t leave a note.”
Hawthorne: “In a way she did. You saw her funeral choices. First of all there’s ‘Eleanor Rigby’. >All the lonely people, where do they all come from?< That’s a cry for help if I ever heard one. And then there’s that poet, Sylvia Plath, and the composer, Jeremiah Clarke. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they both topped themselves, do you?”

Horowitz: “That’s why she knew she was going to die. Because she was about to commit suicide!”
Hawthorne: “Exactly.”

Horowitz: “I don’t really understand any of it. When did you first know it was Cornwallis? (...)
Hawthorne: “You up, for this now? (...)
Horowitz: “Start from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”

Hilda: “I’ve also been in contact with the police. Obviously, some of this is going to get into the newspapers but we’re trying to keep you out of it. First of all they’re embarrassed that you were involved in the first place but, more importantly, we don’t want people to know the story before you write it.”

Wife: “I don’t like the idea of you putting yourself in danger. And look where it’s got you: intensive care!”
Horowitz: “It was only four stitches.”

Wife: “You could have been killed.”
Horowitz: ‘I know.”
Wife: “And you’re not really going to write it, are you? You’ll look ridiculous! Why did you eben go to the building? If you knew he was the killer...”
Horowitz: “...I didn’t think he was the killer. I just thought he might know more than he was saying.”