Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz, Harper, 2017, 496 pp
I was looking forward to Magpie Murders, read for one of my reading groups, but while I enjoyed it I wasn't as crazy about it as it seems almost everyone else in the world was. It is a mystery within a mystery, the two are interrelated, and it just felt too long. That may have been because I started reading it a bit too close to the meeting date causing me to rush through in my best power-reading mode.
The mystery within a mystery is one "written" by the fictional Alan Conway, a bestselling British crime writer. His entire book, Magpie Murders, is reproduced in the novel I was reading, also called Magpie Murders. Are you confused yet? I am quite certain that Mr Horowitz intended so.
The actual mystery which must be solved by Alan Conway's editor Susan Ryeland, concerns the death of her author. Did he commit suicide or was he murdered? Why was the manuscript he turned in just days before his death missing the last chapter? It is all too clever by half, as they say in England.
Bottom line: if you like Agatha Christie style mysteries with plenty of red herrings, a long list of suspects, and a sleuth who figures out who and why before you do, you will love this one. In fact, you will double-love it. I liked Alan Conway's mystery better than Anthony Horowitz's. That is just weird because Horowitz wrote them both.
(Magpie Murders is currently available in hardcover on the mystery shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)
Hmmm, I had high hopes that you'd you like this book!! But alas your review of'MAGPIE MURDERS' doesn't inspire me to want to read it.
ReplyDeleteWell, most people loved it. Sometimes I am just not with the crowd!
DeleteThis one is on my list. I hope to get to it by the end of the year. I've read one book by Horowitz which I enjoyed and have admired a lot of his television writing (Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, the miniseries Injustice, etc.) and I do have a fondness for the great Agatha, so perhaps I will enjoy this one.
ReplyDeleteI predict that you will enjoy it a great deal.
DeleteI laughed reading the last paragraph of your review. Anyways, I think I saw Helen's review of this novel and it seemed to me an interesting concept. Maybe you were eager to finish it and didn't like it in turn?
ReplyDeleteI did like it 3 stars worth, I just didn't really like it 4 stars worth or find it amazing which gets you 5 stars on Goodreads. I just expected to like it more than I did. But I am glad I could make you laugh!
DeleteYeah I'm a tad confused, ha. I think I will let this one go; I don't read sleuth books too often. It slightly reminds me of JK Rowling's book The Silkworm, which I liked okay.
ReplyDeleteThe book is definitely for the dedicated sleuth readers with lots of Agatha Christie experience. I actually liked the two JK Rowling mysteries I read, The Silkworm and the one after that, though I did not read the third.
DeleteI loved this book, but I can understand why you didn't. I thought the Alan Conway mystery was better than the Horowitz one too - in fact, I remember wishing that all the other Atticus Pund novels really existed!
ReplyDeleteI love that! I also wished for more Atticus Pund. I also think if I had taken my time with it, I would have had the patience to follow all the word games and puzzles. That would have made Alan Conway happy even though he was just a fiction!
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