I am a huge fan of the Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery Series, where the author writes himself into a fictional murder mystery series as the Watson to ex-D.I. Daniel Hawthorne's Sherlock. Unfortunately, I must admit that book four was my least favorite in the series so far.

This time the story centers around Horowitz being framed for the murder of a theater critic who wrote a bad review of his play Mindgame. I think it’s fair to say that the reader knows all along that there’s no way Horowitz committed the murder, and instead we follow Hawthorne and Horowitz as they try to clear Horowitz's name by figuring out who of the other six people with access to the same dagger might have done it.

Looking at the reviews, I am an outlier; it seems that most people were satisfied with this book. But overall, I didn’t find myself as captivated by the story as much as I have been with its predecessors. It was still a fast, easy read but I felt like it was lacking a certain something that the other books in the series had. I am excited that there will be at least three more books in the series and am intrigued about learning more regarding Hawthorne's mysterious past.