This book is far from perfect but yknow what, I am super thankful for it for kicking me out of a pretty bad reading slump. This was entertaining, well-paced, and engaging. I finished it within 3 days - this is DNF'ing or putting on hold every other book I've tried in the past couple of weeks.

The Hawthorne & Horowitz series is already pretty refreshing in the sense that the protagonist is the author himself, or at least some AU version of him. He refers to real TV shows, books, and people that he's worked with, he doesn't change his name, and casts himself alongside a fictional Sherlock-esque detective who is himself somewhat mysterious and elusive. But 4 books is still a lot to wear down even a relatively unique premise like that, so I appreciate that he's done something a bit different in this fifth one.

Here, we have Horowitz trying to figure out a plotline for the 5th book in this installment. Instead of an ongoing murder investigation, he instead digs back into one of Hawthorne's old cases, one that has technically already been solved. Hawthorne is the one feeding him the information, but he does so in installments, so Horowitz can continue being the clueless and somewhat unreliable narrator when writing about the events of this 5 year old case.

It's not as straightforward as all that, and there're some twists and turns by the end. While the overall resolution was only just decently shocking, I did appreciate the journey that Horowitz took us on to get us there. There was a good-sized ensemble of characters - enough people to lay a wide enough field for us to guess who the murderer was, but also not so many that it would get confusing really quick. As it is, I kept getting confused between the doctor and the dentist in this particular neighbourhood, not to mention their wives.

After reading this series as well as Magpie Murders, it is very clear to me that Horowitz is quite a golden era mystery nerd after my own heart, and I am here for it. Will definitely be continuing this series.

I have a feeling I may have read this one before but for some reason it wasn't recorded anywhere. The main premise of this one was interesting enough for me to vaguely recall it when it cropped up in the story: a lady receives a sympathy letter condoling with her on the death of her brother before the death actually happens.

There weren't a lot of likeable characters in this one, all of them were annoying to differing extents, but at least none were obnoxiously terrible. This was fun enough for fans of cosy mysteries, but I don't really know what else to say about it.

Fun, insightful, and accessible since it was written in a relatively simplified (but still has enough info to tickle one's brains) style, mimicking a children's book almost. It's exactly the sort of book I needed in a stressful period at work.

Not exactly a slog but not the smoothest book to read either. The mystery, when it got going, was okay, but the most interesting thing about it was definitely the socio-political context that is the whole point of this book and the mystery. Some characters were pretty odious however.

I associate DWJ with somewhat wholesome children's fantasy like Howl's Moving Castle (one of my all time favorites) and the Chrestomanci series. I've read some of her works meant for teens as well, like Dogsbody and Hexwood. But this book was so different from all of the above.

She still writes in a very easy style here, as if she was writing for children, but the events of this book was much harsher than I expected. Deaths, whether by murder or execution, do happen. Battles and skirmishes are fought. The synopsis may make it seem like a cheery children's fantasy or hero's journey sort of book, but it's got some of the grit of adult fantasy that I was not expecting.

Overall though, I couldn't really quite buy into the characters or the world. They weren't annoying, I was just... indifferent. The dynamics of the world was also a little complex for such a short book, and I took a fair bit to figure out the characteristics of the North and South factions, and where each character's loyalties lie. I do feel a certain curiosity to check out subsequent books but perhaps it won't be too high on my priority.

I was interested to find out more about John Donne given that his poem, "Go and catch a falling star", was a major element in Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle and consequently a major part of my childhood. I've since heard whispers about Donne not being particularly exemplary, and the poem itself being misogynistic, essentially hating on women and believing that fidelity was beyond us.

All that may be true, but if anything, this book has painted a convincingly complex picture of Donne. It doesn't defend him from the misogyny of his times, but that there's more than that angle to look at him. In fact, for that time, Donne is surprisingly faithful to his wife, as far as we know. He has 12 children by her, after which she dies in childbirth and Donne genuinely mourns her and vows in her epitaph, which he wrote, not to marry another.

The central thesis of this book is that Donne resists pigeonholing into just one category. He's not just a poet, he's also a priest. He's not just a lawyer, he's also courtier. Much like his poetry, he cannot be just shoved under one label and call it a day.