Magpie Murders : A Novel
Author(s): Anthony Horowitz
"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
A New York Times Bestseller | #1 Indie Next Pick | NPR Best Book of 2017 | Amazon Best Book of 2017 | Washington Post Best Book of 2017 | Esquire Best Book of 2017
From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty and Trigger Mortis, 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.
Review(s):
“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.”
“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.”
“An ingenious funhouse mirror of a novel sets a vintage ‘cozy’ mystery inside a modern frame.”
“Brilliant. Really, really brilliant. I loved it.”
“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.”
“Doubly Devilish.”
“Horowitz..has devised an ingenious whodunit within a whodunit, a metamystery with Agatha Christie roots.”
“A treat for fans of golden age mysteries…. [A] tour de force …. Horowitz throws in several wicked twists…. Highly satisfying.”
“Magpie Murders is an ingenious, twisting tribute to the sleepy English countryside murder and will thoroughly entertain readers of old fashioned detective thrillers.”
“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.”
LibraryReads #1 Pick, Anthony Award for Best Novel Nominee, Macavity Award for Best Novel, Barry Award for Best Novel Nominee
ISBN: 9780062670977