Anthony Horowitz - Magpie Murders

Rating: 4/5

Review:
An enjoyable read

I enjoyed this book.  Anthony Horowitz is a very good writer of detective fiction and he has created an ingenious vehicle here.

The narrator is Susan Ryeland, a present day publishing editor, who is about to publish Magpie Murders, the latest in a very successful series of Agatha-Christie-like mysteries, set in 1955.  The first half or so of the book is the manuscript of this book, while the second half is Susan's attempts to use clues and puzzles left in the book to solve a present day death.  It's a neat device, and Horowitz enjoys himself creating a slightly Poirot-esque character in the book-within-the-book.  He does it rather well and creates a neat pastiche of a Golden Age detective novel; it's a well-constructed mystery with fair clues and a rather engaging protagonist which does the period pretty well.  And, of course, the few little anachronisms can be blamed on the fictional author.  (A struggling mechanic going back to his mean little flat in 1955 and *showering,* for example? I think not – but there aren't many, to be fair.)

The present-day story mirrors the manuscript neatly and is also a decent mystery.  Writers writing about the business of writing can sometimes be pretty grim, but Horowitz does it very well, giving us a flawed but charming narrator and a good mystery (including the traditional rather silly climax), and he uses the literary setting to make some interesting observations on the nature of crime fiction and its role. 

For much of the book's length (which is quite considerable) I had a slightly detached enjoyment, but I was swept up in the climax of the story and didn't want to put it down.  It's not a classic but it's well-constructed, readable and enjoyable and I can recommend it as a good read.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)