2024.02.26 Meeting Notes

As Graham Norton would say, on to the show... Our meeting this month was more subdued than the January discussion. I don’t know if it was the book or us. It did seem that The Twist of the Knife didn’t get as strong of a response as did Riley Sager’s book. Maybe Riley’s playing around with the 2 Ricks and throwing in everything—including the kitchen sink—at the end just riled us up (see what I did there? Riley, Riled?)
We still got a good discussion from Tony Horowitz’s book, though. The subdued conversation made me think that the scores would be total middle of the road and that I would get mostly 5s and 6s, but alas, that was not the case.
The scores were: one 9, ten 8s, five 7s, two 6s, and five 5s. Someone made a great point, 5 was the lowest score – which isn’t half bad (see what I did there? Half? 5 out of 10?) Ok, let’s move on.
The positives were that we liked the storytelling style, we liked the interplay between Hawthorne & Horowitz, we didn’t guess whodunnit (I always think this is a plus), it was entertaining, we like the way the author writes, it was simple and Agatha Christie-esque in the plot, we liked the twist that the bad guy accidentally framed Tony, and we agreed that most, if not all of the threads were there if we chose to see them to try and solve the case.
Laurie liked the author enough that she went out and bought a DVD player so she could watch Magpie Murders (which I rewatched with my Mom when I visited her a few weeks ago).
On the negative side, some were confused, some got bored, and others zoned out. It was tacky that the author put himself in the book and he seems very self-important. Horowitz in the book was whiney, and some didn’t like the theatre setting. A few people actually started to suspect Tony and Allie said that if he did it, went to jail and the series ended, she’d be ok with it.
I think most of us, those who had read other Hawthorne & Horowitz installments, agreed that it was not the best of the series. Some even went as far as to say it was the worst one yet.
Finally, the book’s scores may have been across the board, but Marilyn’s cookies were a 9.
We will meet on March 25 to discuss Dark Corners by Megan Goldin. This is book 2 in the Rachel Krall podcaster series. There’s still time to read book 1 if you are so inclined.
See you in a few weeks,
Kerry