Once a King; Close to Death

 

I was really excited for this book: a memoir of King Edward VIII, in his own words, written during his time in Paris after WWII. But jeez, was it boring. I think he was so concerned with not saying too much that he really didn't say anything at all. There was a little bit of interviews with Wallis, and she was a little more forthcoming but not by much. It was honestly pretty disappointing and didn't give us any new information about Edward. 

On the other hand, Anthony Horowitz never disappoints. The fifth Hawthorne book find Anthony writing about an old murder, since Hawthorne isn't working on anything new. 

In 2014, a man was murdered in a small community by a crossbow. There was no shortage of suspects: every one of the neighbors hated him. His kids were terrors, he blocked access to the shared driveway, and he was planning on putting in a swimming pool, ruining a shared garden space. The neighbors call a meeting to air their grievances, only Giles (the pain in the butt neighbor) doesn't show up. 

Six weeks later Giles is found dead, a bolt from a crossbow in his neck. Two days after that, the neighbor who owned the crossbow is found dead in his car from an apparent suicide. The police decide that the neighbor killed Giles, then himself out of guilt. Hawthorne isn't so sure. Turns out he's right, of course. It was very twisty and had a lot of good red herrings as well as a terrific ending. I couldn't put it down.