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Magpie Murders: A Novel Hardcover – Deckle Edge, June 6, 2017
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"Magpie Murders is a double puzzle for puzzle fans, who don’t often get the classicism they want from contemporary thrillers." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times
New York Times bestseller | Winner of the Macavity Award for Best Novel | NPR best book of the Year | Washington Post best book of the Year | Esquire best book of the Year
From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller weaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie into a chilling, ingeniously original modern-day mystery.
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.
Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder.
Masterful, clever, and relentlessly suspenseful, Magpie Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction in which the reader becomes the detective.
- Print length496 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateJune 6, 2017
- Dimensions6 x 1.49 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100062645226
- ISBN-13978-0062645227
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From the Publisher
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Review
“Each of the narratives in Magpie Murders is engaging and fluid, each with its own charm, though Horowitz’s joyful act of Christie ventriloquism is, in particular, spectacularly impressive.” — Washington Post
“Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders is catnip for classic mystery lovers… With its elegant yet playful plotting, Magpie Murders is the thinking mystery fan’s ideal summer thriller.” — Time Magazine
“An ingenious funhouse mirror of a novel sets a vintage ‘cozy’ mystery inside a modern frame.” — Wall Street Journal
“Brilliant. Really, really brilliant. I loved it.” — Sophie Hannah, author of The Monogram Murders
“An extravagant circus of a novel, part high-wire act, part funhouse mirror. Intricate, bold, stone-cold clever— both comfortably old-fashioned and thrillingly new.” — A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window
“Doubly Devilish.” — People
“Horowitz..has devised an ingenious whodunit within a whodunit, a metamystery with Agatha Christie roots.” — O, the Oprah Magazine
“A treat for fans of golden age mysteries…. [A] tour de force …. Horowitz throws in several wicked twists…. Highly satisfying.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Magpie Murders is an ingenious, twisting tribute to the sleepy English countryside murder and will thoroughly entertain readers of old fashioned detective thrillers.” — New York Journal of Books
“Fans who still mourn the passing of Agatha Christie…will welcome this wildly inventive homage…as the most fiendishly clever puzzle—make that two puzzles—of the year.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“A perfect summer read from the author of Moriarty.” — AARP Magazine
“Magpie Murders [is] a fiendishly clever literary puzzle.” — Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“There’s much to enjoy in Anthony Horowitz’s spry, sardonic Magpie Murders.” — Guardian
“An ingenious novel-within-a-novel . . . part crime novel, part pastiche, this magnificent piece of crime fiction plays with the genre while also taking it seriously.” — Sunday Times
“Superbly written, with great suspects, a perfect period feel, and a cracking reveal at the end.” — The Spectator
“Anthony Horowitz has devised a fiendish mystery within a mystery that will have you hooked from page one. We loved this Agatha Christie-esque crime novel.” — Good Housekeeping (UK)
“A stylish, multi-layered thriller—playful, ingenious and wonderfully entertaining.” — Sunday Mirror
“A compendium of dark delights. . . . A brilliant pastiche of the English village mystery and a hugely enjoyable tale of avarice and skullduggery in the world of publishing.” — Irish Times
“This can only be described as incredibly clever—but what else would you expect from Horowitz?” — The Herald (Glasgow)
“Magpie Murders is a double puzzle for puzzle fans, who don’t often get the classicism they want from contemporary thrillers.” — Janet Maslin, New York Times
From the Back Cover
From the author of Moriarty and Trigger Mortis, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller interweaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie with an equally ingenious modern-day mystery that transforms the reader into the detective.
Alan Conway is a bestselling crime writer. His editor, Susan Ryeland, has worked with him for years, and she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. Alan’s traditional formula pays homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. It’s proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.
When Susan receives Alan’s latest manuscript, in which Atticus Pünd investigates a murder at Pye Hall, an English manor house, she has no reason to think it will be any different from the others. There will be dead bodies, a cast of intriguing suspects, and plenty of red herrings and clues. But the more Susan
reads, the more she realizes that there’s another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript—one of ambition, jealousy, and greed—and that soon it will lead to murder.
Masterful, clever, and ruthlessly suspenseful, Magpie Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage crime fiction.
About the Author
ANTHONY HOROWITZ is the author of the US bestselling Magpie Murders and The Word is Murder, and one of the most prolific and successful writers in the English language; he may have committed more (fictional) murders than any other living author. His novel Trigger Mortis features original material from Ian Fleming. His most recent Sherlock Holmes novel, Moriarty, is a reader favorite; and his bestselling Alex Rider series for young adults has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide. As a TV screenwriter, he created both Midsomer Murders and the BAFTA-winning Foyle’s War on PBS. Horowitz regularly contributes to a wide variety of national newspapers and magazines, and in January 2014 was awarded an OBE.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper; First Edition (June 6, 2017)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 496 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062645226
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062645227
- Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.49 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #97,707 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #939 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Books)
- #2,606 in Murder Thrillers
- #2,778 in Amateur Sleuths
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Welcome to my Amazon author page. It's strange to think that when I wrote my first book, there was no Amazon - in fact there was no internet, no computers. That doesn't make me particularly old. It just shows how quickly times have moved.
In fact I wrote my first book when I was ten, stuck in a miserable, north London boarding school where reading and telling stories were my only lifeline. Every time I write a new book, I have the same sense of urgency that I had then. I knew without any doubt that I would be an author. Perhaps it helped that I wasn't much good at anything else.
Cut forward to the present and now I have over forty-five published novels to my name. The game changer for me was Stormbreaker, the first Alex Rider adventure, published in 2000. There were eleven more books in the series - the latest, Never Say Die, was published in 2017 - and they are now being developed for TV. I have plenty of other children's books out there - I was delighted to discover my Power of Five series (Raven's Gate, Evil Star etc) on sale in a tiny bookshop in Elounda, Crete only a few days ago.
But as I grew older (and my original audience entered their twenties) I felt a need to move into adult writing. This began with two Sherlock Holmes continuation novels, The House of Silk and Moriarty, followed by my entry into the world of James Bond with Trigger Mortis. A second Bond novel is on the way. An original thriller, Magpie Murders was published last year and got some of the best reviews I've had. One of the joys of Twitter, incidentally, is that it allows readers to contact me directly and these 140-character exchanges are as valuable to me as what the professional critics have to say.
I also write for TV. After cutting my teeth on the hugely popular show, Robin of Sherwood, I moved on to work with David Suchet and his brilliant portrayal of Hercule Poirot, writing about nine or ten episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot. I was the first writer on Midsomer Murders and then went on to create Foyle's War which I worked on for the next sixteen years. Somewhere along the way, I also created a five-part series for ITV called Injustice which very much influenced the book I'm publishing now.
The Word is Murder is hopefully the start of a long-running series. It introduces a detective by the name of Daniel Hawthorne - a rather dark and dangerous man whom I actually met on the set of Injustice. At least, that's my version of events and that's what counts here because, very unusually, I actually appear in the book as his not entirely successful sidekick; the Watson to his Holmes.
The whole point of being an author is that you're in control. But here I am, writing a book in which I have no idea what's going on, following in the footsteps of a character who refuses to tell me anything. What I'm trying to do is to give the traditional whodunit a metaphysical twist. I hope, if you read it, you'll enjoy all the clues, the red herrings, the bizarre range of suspects and the occasionally violent twists. With a bit of luck you won't guess the ending (nobody has so far). But at the same time, The Word is Murder offers something more. It's a book about words as much as murder, about writing crime as well as solving it.
Do let me know what you think. I really hope you like the book. If you do, you can tweet me your thoughts at @AnthonyHorowitz. I hope to hear from you!
Anthony Horowitz
Crete 2017
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As outlined in the book summary, this book contains a novel within a novel. You’d think this would be confusing, but don’t worry it’s not, and anyone (particularly those who’ve read a lot of mysteries), will be able to follow the plot/s no problem.
The first chapter introduces us to the protagonist, editor, Susan Ryeland, looking back on the day she eagerly sat down to read the first draft of the latest Alan Conway mystery novel, ‘Magpie Murders’. She goes on to explain that ‘Magpie Murders’ marks the ninth book in his Atticus Pũnd detective series, and that she is a long time fan of his work. She then rounds off the chapter by stating that ‘Magpie Murders’ ruined her life, and how she wishes she had never read it. She wraps up with an ominous message that we have been warned...
We then launch straight into the ‘Magpie Murders’ manuscript, and I found it really cool how it’s set out like an actual book. There’s a cover page (not illustrated of course since this is the first draft), an ‘About the Author’ section, a title list of Conway’s eight previous books, and even a ‘Praise for the Author’ blurb. It really tickled my fancy that author’s Robert Harris and Ian Rankin endorsed both Atticus Pũnd and Alan Conway – too cute! It even states that Atticus Pũnd is soon to be a major BBC1 Television series.
The plot begins on the day of a funeral. Mary Blakiston, housekeeper of Pye Hall (the most prominent house in town) has recently died, the apparent victim of an unfortunate household accident, a fall down the stairs. We quickly learn that Mary is not well liked in the village – that she is a busybody who relishes sticking her nose in everyone’s business and ferreting out their secrets. Naturally, as a result of this, she has a lot of enemies. Atticus Pũnd, when he is introduced, is pretty much a carbon copy of Poirot, he’s even foreign. But don’t be put off, there are reasons for this that will be explained. Funnily enough, this is the second novel I have read this month (The Death of Mrs. Westaway) that not only features Magpies, but uses the rhyme ‘One For Sorrow’ etc. I felt it was used more effectively here, but Ruth Ware still does a good job of it.
To further distinguish it from the present day storyline, Conway’s novel is set in 1955, and is written in the more formal style of an Agatha Christie novel, with multiple third person POV’s. Whereas the present text, is narrated by Susan Ryeland in the first person, and has a lighter, more modern feel. There are some hilarious moments when Susan, attempting to play detective, and decipher clues, comes up with some really half baked ideas. She’s no Atticus Pũnd that’s for sure!
I recommend this over all other books I’ve read this year. I would’ve been more than happy if it was just an Atticus Pũnd novel written by Horowitz, but to have a second mystery as well, and relating it to the first in all the ways that it did just blew me away. I’m so tempted to move straight on to ‘The Word is Murder’ but think I should save it, knowing I have it still to read...
Novel One is a more or less traditional British mystery, well executed with marvelous depth of detail and interesting characters, supposedly by a writer named Alan Conway. It is being read in manuscript form by a nameless person. As a standalone, and with a conclusion, it would be a fine novel in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes … even including the pleasant but diffident Watson-like figure of James. Atticus Pünd is an estimable protagonist, a perfect analog of Holmes, deductive reasoning spinning but never exposed. However, the story is told by an omniscient narrator (who isn’t entirely omniscient, since he’s not privy to Pünd’s deductive logic.) Most of the time this isn’t a show-stopper, but it is jarring when the narrator goes into a character’s head right after refusing to go into Pünd’s thoughts. The story toddles along, the omniscient narrator giving it a very 19th Century feel. But wait, you say, Conan Doyle was one of the first noteworthy authors to use third person distant so he could let Watson tell the story without having to expose Holmes’ ratiocination until the very end. An omniscient narrator would know Pünd’s thinking, so the choice of that form comes off as artifice. The bigger problem is there is a crowd of named characters from the little town of Saxby-on-Avon. We love them all, and Horowitz is at his best when he’s describing them. Most are potential suspects by the end of the 90% of Novel One we get before a break …
… to Novel Two, which starts with an attempt to solve the too-many-characters-to-remember problem in Novel One. The solution is to have the nameless editor, who we might or might not remember from chapter one, summarize many of the people in Novel One, reminding the relieved reader who all these folks are. But the summary comes off as artifice. (“Ohmigod, editor says there are too many characters. Well, I’ll fix that.”) After the summary, the editor finally lets us know she’s Susan Ryeland, and Book Two is off to the races … well, the trots … and Ryeland narrates the second story in first person. The transition from omniscient narrator to first person helps make a clear break from Novel One, but Ryeland is a less interesting narrator than Conway’s omniscient narrator, and first person somewhat circumscribes her ability to give the reader the opulent descriptions that made me turn the pages in Novel One. It turns out that there are many parallels between Conway, the author, and his protagonist, Atticus Pünd. That is well handled and interesting, but Ryeland’s search for missing material layers red herring upon red herring. Faced with many characters and many clues, I began to zone out. Still, the book is well-written. For readers who want complex plots and good writing, this book will be satisfying.
I don't regret reading it, I also don't think I can recommend it. Also, a huge percentage of this book (20-30% I think) was about the publisher and other references, etc. and this is set between what seems to be a last chapter and then an additional last chapter.
Top reviews from other countries
As much as I've liked the 'book within the book' idea, the whole novel ends up being just far too long. It's a horrible thing to say to an author, but cutting off 25% of each part would have done a lot of good (maybe Susan should have edited it, haha!).
Also, are we talking 'references' (to MSM, Poirot, Christie, etc) or plain clichées, because honestly...
So many pages are wasted on so many things that are totally irrelevant to the story and weigh an already heavy plot even more down (one thing is a red herring, another thing is random ideas thrown in here and there).
The way Pund 'solves the murder, is just neither realistic nor believable.
Andreas is annoying.
Characters are all so inconsistent, tons of words to describe each one of them, and still, no depth.
Several inconsistencies here and there, hard to follow up anyway due to the length of this thing.
Then we have Susan who is an agent for Cloverleaf publishers. She looks after the writer Alan Conway who wrote Magpie Murders. Naturally she visits and speak to Alan who has written 8 Atticus Pund Books and is writing the nineth novel.
So there are two tale side by side the unfolding of Magpie Murders and the lives of the people who work for and own Cloverleaf publishing.
I will not talk about there tale any more so I do not ruin the plot.
This is engaging and has you wanting to know what happens in each tale. The writing style is easy to read and has you on the edge of your seat in the final third. I read this in one heavy session as I wanted to know the conclusions.
This is the first novel I have read of Anthony Horowitz and I will read more.