The first book I read this year was called Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. Horowitz has written many books including numerous children's books, plus plays, movies, and graphic novels, and he has written for and/or created fourteen television shows including Agatha Christie's Poirot, Midsomer Murders, and Foyle's War. A prolific guy.
The hook for Magpie Murders is that there are two murder mysteries in one novel. The way this is accomplished is this: A murder mystery writer submits a first draft of his latest novel, but the last chapter is missing. The narrator of our story is an editor for this author's publisher, so she (and we) read the entire 200-page manuscript along with her, only to realize that the book is not finished. We then step out of the novel and into her world, where we find out quickly that the author has killed himself by jumping off a roof.
Or was he pushed? We have two mysteries to solve.
I rarely am able to truly solve mysteries, but sometimes I can guess who did it, usually based more on writer tricks than on the clues. In this case, I was able to guess both killers. I'm so proud of myself.
The book was fine, though not anything I would say is a must-read. The writing is perfectly good, as one would expect from an author with Horowitz's body of work. There are inside references to Agatha Christie - for example, the detective in the novel-within-a-novel is clearly deliberately modeled after Hercule Poirot - as well as a few mentions of Midsomer Murders. It's all clever enough.
I think that maybe I have read enough Agatha Christie-ish murder mysteries for this lifetime, but if you are into that sort of thing, the two-mysteries-in-one setup should hold your interest.
