Magpie Murders

Starred review from February 6, 2017
Bestseller Horowitz (The House of Silk) provides a treat for fans of golden age mysteries with this tour de force that both honors and pokes fun at the genre. In the prologue, an unnamed editor sets the tone by describing how reading the manuscript of Magpie Murders, the ninth novel in a bestselling mystery series by Alan Conway, cost her her job and many friendships. In the text of the manuscript itself (which is accompanied by a bio of Conway and blurbs from real-life authors Ian Rankin and Robert Harris), Poirot-like sleuth Atticus Pünd, a German concentration camp survivor who has settled in England, tackles an Agatha Christieâlike puzzle in 1955 Saxby-on-Avon. The verdict of accidental death seems warranted in the case of housekeeper and unrepentant busybody Mary Blakiston, who took a fatal fall down a flight of stairs at Pye Hall, since no one else was in the locked manor house at the time. But rumors that her estranged son wished Mary dead lead his fiancée to seek Pünd's help. The identity of the person responsible for Mary's death is but one of the questions Pünd must answer, and Horowitz throws in several wicked twists as the narrative builds to a highly satisfying explanation of the prologue. Agent: Jonathan Lloyd, Curtis Brown (U.K.).

Starred review from September 4, 2017
Horowitz’s new novel salutes the whodunit by presenting two sterling examples of it­­­—a golden age classic in the style of Christie and Sayers bookended by a contemporary mystery involving the suspicious death of bestselling author Alan Conway. Actor Bond, best known as Lady Rosamund on the television series Downton Abbey, narrates the contemporary plot, providing a proper British accent for editor Susan Ryeland, as she sits down to peruse the manuscript of the ninth novel in Conway’s bestselling series featuring master sleuth Atticus Pünd, a German concentration camp survivor. For the manuscript portions of the audiobook, actor Corduner takes over, reading the clue- and red herring–strewn puzzle, set in the fictional village of Saxby-on-Avon in 1955, in a mellifluous British voice. For the character of Pünd, he weakens the force of his speech while adding a Germanic edge. He employs similar distinctive touches for all of the manuscript’s secondary characters, including Pünd’s eager young assistant, James, and a long list of suspects in the murder of Sir Magnus Pye. When the Pünd novel ends abruptly, reader Bond returns for Susan’s explanation that the last chapter is missing. Worse yet, the author is dead, supposedly by his own hand. At the funeral, meeting the real-life counterparts to his fictional characters, Susan suspects Conway’s been murdered and sets out to prove it. Bond easily handles the highs and lows of Susan’s amateur sleuthing, including some mistakes and at least one terrifying moment of truth. The verdict: twice the mystery, twice the clues, twice the wit, and twice the fun. A Harper hardcover.

Starred review from April 1, 2017

Horowitz's fourth adult novel (after Trigger Mortis) presents two mysteries for the price of one, crafting a classic whodunit within a modern mystery. Susan Ryeland is an editor for a small press whose success rests on the old-fashioned mystery novels of Alan Conway. Returning from escorting an author on a book tour, she finds Alan's latest Atticus Pund manuscript, Magpie Murders, on her desk. Upon reaching the novel's end, she finds that the last chapter is missing. When she informs her boss, Charles Clover, he tells her that Alan has committed suicide. Susan searches for the lost chapter, and in the process comes to believe that Alan's death was no suicide. Using clues buried in the manuscript, she investigates his death. While Susan and the fictional Atticus are very different characters, they use similar techniques to tease out the clues and hints to bring each mystery to resolution. VERDICT Both stories might stand alone, but combined, they result in a delightful puzzle. Fans of Agatha Christie and the BBC's Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War (both written by Horowitz) will relish this double mystery. [See Prepub Alert, 12/12/16; "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/15/17.]--Terry Lucas, Shelter Island P.L., NY

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2017

Making her way through a manuscript from cantankerous but hugely popular crime writer Alan Conway, put-upon editor Susan Ryeland senses an undercurrent suggesting a real-life case of murder. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017

Agatha Christie fans will line up for this salute to Golden Age whodunits from Horowitz ("Alex Rider" series). When editor Susan Ryeland receives best-selling mystery author Alan Conway's new manuscript, she is annoyed to discover the final chapter is missing and that Conway has committed suicide. Susan begins to suspect that the irascible Conway's book hides murderous secrets related to his death. (LJ 4/1/17)

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2017
A preternaturally brainy novel within a novel that's both a pastiche and a deconstruction of golden-age whodunits.Magpie Murders, bestselling author Alan Conway's ninth novel about Greek/German detective Atticus Pund, kicks off with the funeral of Mary Elizabeth Blakiston, devoted housekeeper to Sir Magnus Pye, who's been found at the bottom of a steep staircase she'd been vacuuming in Pye Hall, whose every external door was locked from the inside. Her demise has all the signs of an accident until Sir Magnus himself follows her in death, beheaded with a sword customarily displayed with a full suit of armor in Pye Hall. Conway's editor, Susan Ryeland, does her methodical best to figure out which of many guilty secrets Conway has provided the suspects in Saxby-on-Avon--Rev. Robin Osborne and his wife, Henrietta; Mary's son, Robert, and his fiancee, Joy Sanderling; Joy's boss, surgeon Emilia Redwing, and her elderly father; antiques dealers Johnny and Gemma Whitehead; Magnus' twin sister, Clarissa; and Lady Frances Pye and her inevitable lover, investor Jack Dartford--is most likely to conceal a killer, but she's still undecided when she comes to the end of the manuscript and realizes the last chapter is missing. Since Conway in inconveniently unavailable, Susan, in the second half of the book, attempts to solve the case herself, questioning Conway's own associates--his sister, Claire; his ex-wife, Melissa; his ex-lover, James Taylor; his neighbor, hedge fund manager John White--and slowly comes to the realization that Conway has cast virtually all of them as fictional avatars in Magpie Murders and that the novel, and indeed Conway's entire fictional oeuvre, is filled with a mind-boggling variety of games whose solutions cast new light on murders fictional and nonfictional. Fans who still mourn the passing of Agatha Christie, the model who's evoked here in dozens of telltale details, will welcome this wildly inventive homage/update/commentary as the most fiendishly clever puzzle--make that two puzzles--of the year.

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April 15, 2017
Horowitz's unusual stand-alone combines two books in onethe first, set in 1950s England, is a wonderfully written Agatha Christiestyle whodunit complete with vicar, village, and vengeance. The second, set in modern times, stars an editor who must solve a mystery surrounding that whodunit, as her publishing house's fortunes rest upon its success. While the first story is more enjoyable than the second, which drags a little, this is overall a very entertaining set of tales, and readers will enjoy finding clues in the whodunit that will help solve the mystery in the latter tale. Perfect for readers of Christie and Sophie Hannah, for lovers of mysteries with a splash of metafiction, and, of course, for fans of Horowitz's other work in multiple genres, for both young people and adults. In addition to fiction, Horowitz is the acclaimed creator and writer of such popular TV crime series as Foyle's War and Midsomer Murders.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)