Magpie Murders (Susan Ryeland #1)

by Anthony Horowitz

But I’m not sure it actually matters what we read. Our lives continue along the straight lines that have been set out for us. Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we enjoy it.

And there they were, just lying there in the middle of all his papers. How long had she been in the room? Had she seen them?

She and Magnus were twins. They were equals, happily protected by all the wealth and privilege which surrounded them and which the two of them would enjoy for the rest of their lives. That was what she had always thought. How could this have happened to her?

These had been his plans. But if there was one thing that life had taught him, it was the futility of making plans. Life had its own agenda.

he had expressed the belief that everything in life had a pattern and that a coincidence was simply the moment when that pattern became briefly visible.

I understood why Alan had started Magpie Murders with a funeral. It had been a useful device, introducing all the main characters in a way that allowed him to consider them at leisure. I was able to do the same now. I was quite surprised how many of them I knew.