Magpie Murders - Britbox TV review

I read and enjoyed Anthony Horowitz's Magpie Murders not long after its original publication. I was even more taken with the follow-up title, Moonflower Murders, which is quite excellent. So I was looking forward to the TV version of the first book in the 'Susan Ryeland' series, anticipation enhanced when I discovered that Horowitz himself was taking responsibility for the adaptation.

I certainly wasn't disappointed. On the contrary, I enjoyed the TV version even more than the book. Although the same man wrote both versions of the story, I felt that his use of the flexibility of television worked to the story's advantage. It also helps that Horowitz is even more experienced in the field of screenplay writing than he is as a detective novelist. Here he is on the top of his game. There is a slight dipping of tension in the fifth of the six episodes, as the pieces of plot are manoeuvred around the chessboard, but everything comes together quite triumphantly in the final instalment.

Horowitz benefits from a first-rate cast and the sort of high production values that ensured the long-term success of Inspector Morse thirty-five years ago. Susan, for instance, is played by Lesley Manville, who does a very good job. Michael Maloney is also good as her publisher boss. Lately I've been watching old episodes of that great comedy series The Brittas Empire, so I was very pleased to see Pippa Haywood, who played Gordon Brittas' wife Helen, taking on not one role here but two.

The novel features a 'book within a book' but in the screenplay, the two stories are intertwined, a method that works extremely well, with some of the same actors appearing in both. It's all very clever, but because Horowitz is such a skilled craftsman, the cerebral plotting never becomes turgid. The location filming in lovely parts of Suffolk is the icing on the cake.  

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz - review

The Word of Murder, Anthony Horowitz's latest bestseller, is to my mind even more fascinating than Magpie Murders, his take on the Golden Age detective story. In this book, set just a few years ago, he introduces a new character in the tradition of the Great Detective, a former cop called Daniel Hawthorne. And Hawthorne has his very own Watson figure to admire and record for posterity the brilliance of his deductions - and this happens to be none other than Horowitz himself.

It's a bold step, to introduce oneself as a major character in a novel of one's own, and I can't imagine that I'd ever attempt it. At first, I thought that I wasn't going to like the device. But to my surprise and pleasure, Horowitz proved once again that he is such a smooth and appealing storyteller that he can get away with murder (and no, that's not a plot spoiler!)

The opening premise is terrific. A woman called Diana Cowper goes into a funeral parlour, and arranges her own funeral. Six hours later, she is dead, strangled in her own home The police call in Hawthorne as a consultant, and he in turn persuades Horowitz to write up the story. The results I found fascinating - not least Horowitz's musings on the narrowness of public debate in modern society.

This is a fair play mystery, with a clever red herring which I dutifully swallowed. Yes, Horowitz outsmarted me. And I'm glad. I always found with Agatha Christie that my favourites among her books were those when I was led up the garden path, as I was here. There are twists a-plenty, and although one element of the plot didn't strike me as totally convincing, I was more than willing to suspend disbelief throughout. Great fun.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Any Golden Age fan is bound to be drawn to Anthony Horowitz's recent novel, Magpie Murders. It's an example of metaficiton, in which Horowitz combines a capable pastiche of a Christie-style whodunit with a contemporary mystery, and a dollop of satire about the publishing business. There are plenty of jokes (the last Horowitz novel I read, The Killing Joke, also gave his wit a pleasing showcase) and there's ingenuity in abundance.

The first half of the book comprises a novel set in the year Horowitz was born, 1955. A cleaner has died in rather mysterious circumstances, and soon her employer, Sir Magnus Pye, is brutally murdered. There is no shortage of motives or suspects - but shortly before the climax, the story comes to a sudden halt. We are then transported to the present, and the publishing. Alan Conway, author of the story, has died, having apparently committed suicide - and the last two chapters of his novel seem to be missing.

Most of the rest of the story is narrated by Conway's editor, Susan, who begins to suspect that in fact Conway was murdered. Once again, she discovers a variety of people with good cause to wish that the author was dead. But which of them is guilty? There's a "least likely person" explanation that is pleasing, even if the motivation is thin. And then, at the end of the story, we are given the solution to the mystery in Conway's novel - and, once more, a suitably unlikely culprit is unmasked..

I like Horowitz's writing very much. He has a real gift for entertainment, as evidenced by his many successes with TV screenplays (which earn more than one mention in the book; I see this not as showing off, but rather as an illustration of his teasing sense of humour) as well as by his fiction. The first half of the book is, at times, rather slow-moving, but this is explained by the need to plant a range of pleasing clues. It's all very cleverly and agreeably handled. An interestingly original take on classic crime fiction which I was very glad to read.