A Line to Kill was published by Century in 2021. Horowitz and Hawthorne are invited to appear at a literary festival on Alderney, the smallest of the Channel Islands. When a local property developer is found murdered, the island’s isolation (small population, limited transport off the island) creates a classic closed-circle mystery. The suspects are the festival attendees, the locals, and possibly the island’s own dark history (Alderney housed a Nazi concentration camp during the occupation).
The novel is Horowitz’s most overtly Agatha Christie-influenced: the island setting, the limited suspect pool, and the literary-festival backdrop all echo Christie’s methodology while the metafictional frame (Horowitz describing his own investigation of a real murder he participated in solving) adds a contemporary layer.
Collecting A Line to Kill
First edition (Century, London, 2021): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- Fine in dust jacket: $15–$25
- Very good: $8–$15
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
The Island Mystery
Alderney is one of the few Channel Islands without a significant tourist infrastructure, which makes it an ideal closed-circle setting. The island’s real wartime history — it housed four German labour camps, including SS Lager Sylt — provides the novel with historical depth. Horowitz visited Alderney to research the setting, and the descriptions of the island’s landscape, its tiny population, and its peculiar atmosphere are drawn from life.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the literary festival in the novel real? The Alderney Literary Festival existed before the novel and Horowitz has attended it. The novel fictionalises the event while preserving the real setting — a typical Horowitz technique of embedding fiction within verifiable reality.