Loss of life, deception, and a detective with quite a lot to cover stalk the pages of Anthony Horowitz’s brilliant murder mystery, the second in the bestselling series starring Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne.

“Don’t be here. It’s too late . “

These, heard over the phone, had been the final recorded terms of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer Richard Pryce, found out bludgeoned to death in his bachelor pad with a container of wine-a 1982 Chateau Lafite well worth £3,000, to become precise.

Odd, on the subject of The Phrase is Loss of life: A Book considering he didn’t drink. Why this container? And why those phrases? And just why was a three-digit quantity painted around the wall by the killer? And, most importantly, which of the man’s many, many enemies do the deed?

Baffled, the authorities are pressured to bring in Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, the writer Anthony, who’s really obtaining rather good at this murder investigation business.

But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes very clear that he, too, has secrets to cover. As our hesitant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case, he realizes that these secrets must be exposed-even at the chance of death . . .