--- title: Review: Anthony Horowitz's Magpie Murders description: "Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery, and what is it that attracts us — the crime or the solution?" canonical: https://time.com/4819586/magpie-murders-anthony-horowitz-review/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-15T10:44:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:09:52.691Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Review: Anthony Horowitz's 'Magpie Murders' Is Catnip for Classic Mystery Lovers og:description: "Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery, and what is it that attracts us—the crime or the solution?" og:url: https://time.com/4819586/magpie-murders-anthony-horowitz-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e59feed2cf5d7b4/6988d1c7fb4eac1f0c892765/magpie-murders.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: magpie-murders og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: Anthony Horowitz's 'Magpie Murders' Is Catnip for Classic Mystery Lovers twitter:description: "Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery, and what is it that attracts us—the crime or the solution?" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e59feed2cf5d7b4/6988d1c7fb4eac1f0c892765/magpie-murders.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Review: Anthony Horowitz's _Magpie Murders_ Is Catnip for Classic Mystery Lovers by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jun 15, 2017 10:44 AM UTC  by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jun 15, 2017 10:44 AM UTC “Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery,” asks Susan Ryeland, the narrator of British author Anthony Horowitz’s new novel, [_Magpie Murders_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062645226/?tag=timecom-20), “and what is it that attracts us — the crime or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable?” If anyone should be able to answer these questions, it’s Susan. As an editor at a publishing house, she works with the massively successful Alan Conway, a writer of [Agatha Christie](http://time.com/4029315/agatha-christie-best-novels/)\-style whodunits. _Magpie Murders_ is one mystery novel wrapped in another: we the readers peruse Alan’s latest manuscript alongside his editor, while another crime plays out in Susan’s life. Evidence mounts that finding the guilty party in the book will shed light on the case in real life. Horowitz has spent a long career thinking up suspense stories in the vein of the genre’s greats. In addition to creating the popular British detective shows _Midsomer Murders_ and _Foyle’s War_, he has written screenplays for the Poirot TV series, a _James Bond_ novel commissioned by the Ian Fleming estate and a number of successful YA thrillers. Much like his character Alan, he is both prolific and a bona fide student of the golden age of detective fiction — and his knowledge shines through in this book, which is catnip for classic mystery lovers. As a [Christie](http://time.com/4029233/agatha-christie-poison/) disciple, he is near equal to his master. The novel within the novel, also titled _Magpie Murders_, has all the fixings of a murder in the English countryside, with a fussy detective, a daft sidekick, a meddling busybody, a peculiar vicar and a bombastic aristocrat. In addition to referencing Christie mysteries like 4:50 From Paddington, Horowitz name-drops his own oeuvre: “I thought it sounded too much like _Midsomer Murders_,” says one character of the manuscript’s title. In fact, the plot of the book bears a certain resemblance to the 1997 pilot of _Midsomer Murders_, which is itself based on the 1987 Caroline Graham novel[ _The Killings at Badger’s Drift_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1933397047/?tag=timecom-20) _—_ a kind of in-joke for Horowitz fans. But even as Horowitz pays homage to the greats and teases his own ego, he manages to skewer our obsession with homicide. “I don’t understand it,” says one character. “All these murders on TV — you’d think people would have better things to do with their time.” The combination of reverence and irreverence makes the book irresistible for those of us with mixed emotions about our crime-fiction addiction. Speaking of mixed emotions, the novel arrives in the U.S. at an interesting time for Horowitz. He recently got in hot water for saying he’d been warned off writing black characters as a white author. And he previously drew ire for calling black actor Idris Elba “[too street](http://time.com/4018556/anthony-horowitz-idris-elba-james-bond/)” to play James Bond, for which he apologized. On the other hand, his own 007 novel introduced a gay best friend for the spy, and many of his stories, including _Magpie Murders_, feature gay narratives. With one foot in the present and one in the past, his public persona is perhaps a bit like his fiction. But back to the story. As Susan digs into Alan’s personal life, she learns that he’s been inventing his own in-jokes in his novel plotting: hidden anagrams, thematic character names and other rhetorical devices to keep the writing process interesting for himself. It turns out the master of mystery isn’t as smitten with the genre as his readers. But the readers get the last laugh as these games lead to the ultimate twist. With its elegant yet playful plotting, _Magpie Murders_ is the thinking mystery fan’s ideal summer thriller. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4819586/magpie-murders-anthony-horowitz-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4819586/magpie-murders-anthony-horowitz-review/"},"headline":"Review: Anthony Horowitz's Magpie Murders Is Catnip for Classic Mystery Lovers","datePublished":"2017-06-15T10:44:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:09:52.691Z","description":"\"Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery, and what is it that attracts us--the crime or the solution?\"","url":"https://time.com/4819586/magpie-murders-anthony-horowitz-review/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e59feed2cf5d7b4/6988d1c7fb4eac1f0c892765/magpie-murders.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e59feed2cf5d7b4/6988d1c7fb4eac1f0c892765/magpie-murders.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"magpie-murders","caption":"magpie-murders","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4819586/magpie-murders-anthony-horowitz-review/","name":"Review: Anthony Horowitz's Magpie Murders Is Catnip for Classic Mystery Lovers"}}]}] ```