This is my 7th Anthony Horowitz book, and I've liked three of them, so I continue to give him a shot, even though 2 stars is the best I've come up with previously for a Hawthorne book. And the last one got a one, I thought it was quite terrible. I do not find the Hawthorne character to be very interesting. I read this without much hope, but was pleasantly surprised to find it a vast improvement over the last one. I had some quibbles here and there, some laziness in the story telling, what with random characters just happening to come forth with the perfect information at the perfect time, but as my expectations were so low to begin with, the fact that I was mostly entertained by this was good enough for my rating to soar to a three.