Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz: A Review

By Shari Randall

Writing a review for a mystery is a tricky business. How to keep the review spoiler free while at the same time giving readers a taste of the ingredients that make a book a tempting dish?

This is especially true of Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders. Some reviewers called Magpie Murders “a puzzle within a puzzle.” It was certainly that, but more importantly for me and other fans of classic British mystery, it was a book that better channeled Agatha Christie than any other I’ve read in years.

I read once that when Horowitz was a young man, he traveled around the world, reading Agatha Christie novels as he went. He certainly absorbed all the elements that make Christie’s Poirot books catnip to the mystery reader: the omniscient-but-irritating investigator, the cozy English village, the simmering resentments and crimes barely covered by a lace tablecloth of respectability and good manners. More than that, he’s mastered Christie’s deft and delicate planting of clues in broad daylight.

Horowitz is well known for his work on television’s Foyle’s War and Midsomer Murders. He was chosen by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle to write The House of Silk and Moriarty, and completed one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels to acclaim. Plus, he’s known to millions of young adults as the author of the exciting Alex Rider spy novels. Talk about writing chops.

I couldn’t wait to dive in.

The story opens with an editor, Susan Ryeland, reading the latest book in her best selling author Alan Conway’s Atticus Pünd mystery series. The book-within-the-book is called Magpie Murders. One begins to feel the proximity of a rabbit hole. One doesn’t mind. One jumps in with both feet.

The novel within the novel is perfection. Atticus Pünd (yes, with an umlaut) is just as brilliant, irritating, and pompous as Poirot. He may be German instead of Belgian, but he’s the guy. His assistant, James Fraser, was actually an improvement upon the dim but good hearted Hastings — younger, more sympathetic, more perceptive.

All the usual suspects are there in the village of Saxby-on-Avon: the doubting vicar, the vicar’s bossy wife, the stately home, the aristocratic boor, the aristocratic boor’s unfaithful wife, the snooping maid. There’s even a suit of armor. I positively wallowed in the Christie-ness of it all.

That’s why it jarred a bit every few chapters to be tossed back into the current day, “real world” with Susan Ryeland. She discovers that the last few chapters of Magpie Murders have gone missing. Susan’s search to find them leads her into the twisted world of the author and another constellation of suspects.

Verdict? I give Magpie Murders four and a half teapots out of five. It would have been five but the framing story was bogged down by just one too many red herrings, especially one that just didn’t ring true.

But honestly, reader, you won’t care. If you are looking for a perfectly entertaining and pitch perfect channeling of the great Agatha’s Poirot, look no further. Get the book, make yourself a lovely cup of darjeeling, and dive into Magpie Murders.

Have you read the Magpie Murders or any other great mysteries lately? Please share in the comments below.