Magpie Murders

Magpie Murders

  - Anthony Horowitz

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a book I was really looking forward to reading and expected to enjoy it, for many reasons. Growing up, I absolutely loved Sherlock Holmes and Poirot stories, and tried (unsuccessfully!) to find the magic recreated in several cozy mysteries. And at last here was a book, that was unabashedly inspired by Agatha Christie. Moreover, I had read ‘The House of Silk’ and ‘Moriarty’ by Anthony Horowitz and enjoyed both, even though in each case I was able to figure out where it was heading.

I liked the concept – a story within a story within a story. The first half of the book – the murder mystery written by an author who is a key character in the book – moves at a good pace. It has a decidedly Christie-like feel to it, with a quaint village setting and a host of suspects, each with a good motive. It is eventually very neatly tied up with a satisfying conclusion. The second half of the book, a murder mystery in the “real time” in the book, did not match up to the fictional storyline. In this thread, it was quite evident who the murder was – there was a hint early on, and midway there was a rather obvious clue. And as with the first one, this also ended with all the loose ends tied and wrapped up. Both the stories are tightly linked, as are the murders - including the point that the murder victims were not likable people and were actually hated by many.

And yet, despite everything that it had going for it, I was left quite underwhelmed. What I disliked most about it was the writing style – it meandered a lot and had too many repetitions. With both the murders – in the fictional and the real timeline, after describing the background of the suspects, the author has Susan creating the list of possible suspects recapturing their behavior that has got them on this list. The suspect list factor works for Holmes and Poirot because the detectives infer something beyond the stated facts; here, it seems that the author did not consider his readers capable of observing something quite obvious from the straightforward facts. Also inserted into the novel are several sections of unnecessary prose – an excerpt from a completely print-unworthy book by Alan Conway, an article by Claire trying to capture the real Alan, Alan’s novel compared against the manuscript by Donald Leigh which Alan was accused of plagiarizing. These were not only boring and redundant, I felt that the author was trying too hard to demonstrate his talent at different styles of writing. Another thing that irks me is what I would call the “premonition” factor, for want of a better word – quite a few times in her narrative Susan tells the readers that things were going to get far worse than she expected at that instant. I do not understand why authors feel this need to artificially jack up the suspense – I would much rather prefer to view the events from the characters’ eyes as they unfold.

On the content side, as I mentioned, the murderer in the second story was trivial to guess – the clues were right there, despite the red herrings. It is quite frustrating when you as a reader figure out who the culprit is, but the protagonist who is investigating the crime remains completely oblivious to it! It may be a deliberate act on the author’s part, but then the impression it creates on me is that the author is showing off. The first mystery was more interesting and suspenseful, and the revelation did come as a surprise, but the conclusion relied more on intuition than reasoning. And last (and as they say, not the least) peeve - I am getting increasingly annoyed with the authors who include a romance in the life of the female protagonist, for apparently the sole purpose of having the love interest rescue the heroine at the climax.

I would have rated it between 2 and 2.5, but added another 0.5 for the concept and the tribute to Christie.