Magpie Murders
MAGPIE MURDERS is really two books in one. Author Alan Conway is a character in a book he has written with the same name.
Susan Ryeland is his editor, but the big twist in the book comes when she's almost finished reading the book. She finds she's missing the ending. So . . . Susan becomes a sort of detective.
Conway's method of writing helps Susan discover clues that will solve three murders, two of them in the fictional book and one in the real life situation fictional situation author Anthony Horowitz has created. Conway uses real places and people as inspiration for his novels and he's always putting puzzles and anagrams in his books. For instance, the beginnings of all nine books spell out a message.
Both main characters in the two books have a terminal illness. Author Alan Conway is dying of a brain tumor, and he seems to have written a suicide note. Private detective Atticus Pund, the main character in Conway's nine novels, also has six months to live.
Susan's personal life also intrudes. Andreas, her boyfriend, who has taught school with Alan Conway and his former wife, Melissa, has asked her to marry him and come with him to live with him in Crete where he plans to buy a hotel/restaurant with his brother. She also has an offer from her boss, Charles Clover, CEO of her publishing company to become the new CEO while he assumes the chairman position.
This is an Agatha Christie type mystery with TEN LITTLE INDIANA type suspects. They're all almost equally motivated. In Conway's last book, Mary Blakistan, Magnes Pye's housekeeper, has apparently fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. Susan thinks she's a murder victim; she know Magnes is when he is decapitated with a sword held by a knight in the entryway to his manor. In real life, within Horowitz's novel, author Alan Conway is pushed off the terrace of his house.
It is a convention for mystery writers to show the murderer earlier in the book, so he/she can't pull one out of thin air when he/she resolves the conflict, making the book seem contrived. I never suspected Alan Conway's murderer because he/she was never one of Susan's ten little indians. The murders within Conway's novel live up to the convention. One of them actually did it. I don't know if I liked this format. I guess I thought Horowitz wasn't playing within the rules with his “real life” murder. And I didn't even know Susan Ryeland was the narrator until she told me.
Susan Ryeland is his editor, but the big twist in the book comes when she's almost finished reading the book. She finds she's missing the ending. So . . . Susan becomes a sort of detective.
Conway's method of writing helps Susan discover clues that will solve three murders, two of them in the fictional book and one in the real life situation fictional situation author Anthony Horowitz has created. Conway uses real places and people as inspiration for his novels and he's always putting puzzles and anagrams in his books. For instance, the beginnings of all nine books spell out a message.
Both main characters in the two books have a terminal illness. Author Alan Conway is dying of a brain tumor, and he seems to have written a suicide note. Private detective Atticus Pund, the main character in Conway's nine novels, also has six months to live.
Susan's personal life also intrudes. Andreas, her boyfriend, who has taught school with Alan Conway and his former wife, Melissa, has asked her to marry him and come with him to live with him in Crete where he plans to buy a hotel/restaurant with his brother. She also has an offer from her boss, Charles Clover, CEO of her publishing company to become the new CEO while he assumes the chairman position.
This is an Agatha Christie type mystery with TEN LITTLE INDIANA type suspects. They're all almost equally motivated. In Conway's last book, Mary Blakistan, Magnes Pye's housekeeper, has apparently fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. Susan thinks she's a murder victim; she know Magnes is when he is decapitated with a sword held by a knight in the entryway to his manor. In real life, within Horowitz's novel, author Alan Conway is pushed off the terrace of his house.
It is a convention for mystery writers to show the murderer earlier in the book, so he/she can't pull one out of thin air when he/she resolves the conflict, making the book seem contrived. I never suspected Alan Conway's murderer because he/she was never one of Susan's ten little indians. The murders within Conway's novel live up to the convention. One of them actually did it. I don't know if I liked this format. I guess I thought Horowitz wasn't playing within the rules with his “real life” murder. And I didn't even know Susan Ryeland was the narrator until she told me.
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