Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

June 2017 Harper Collins
Fiction

Originally published in Great Britain 2016 by Orion Publishing Group


It's been described as a Golden Age of Mystery.
Although I am not usually a fan of "whodunnits", I bravely decided to take on this book. I must admit that I lack patience with these carefully structured novels. I was amused when researching the origins of the Golden Age of Mystery Novels.

I referred to the following 1929 rules according to Ronald Knox's "Ten Commandments" (or "Decalogue") of a detective story:

-The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
-All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
-Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
-No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
-No Chinaman must figure in the story.
-No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
-The detective himself must not commit the crime.
-The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.
-The "sidekick" of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind: his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
-Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

A similar but more detailed list of prerequisites was prepared by S. S. Van Dine in an article entitled "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories" which appeared in The American Magazine in September 1928. They are commonly referred to as Van Dine's Commandments.

Overall, I found this story to be clever, witty and suspenseful. The beginning was rather surreal as an editor begins explaining how she is proofing this copy of Magpie Murders which eventually becomes the "outside" story of the "inside" story. This is not a spoiler as it helped me to make sense of the book when I started reading it.

The "inside" story happens to be the Magpie Murders which unfolds with a grand cast of characters. Drama and mystery are revealed slowly and methodically as suspicions arise with the untimely deaths of major characters. It seems that everyone has motive in small towns where people are all so close in proximity.

Although this is not my preferred genre, I enjoyed this book and was very involved with trying to decipher the mysteries that were spinning around!
If you love a good mystery this book is for you!



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