Magpie Murders

Written with lots of layers of meaning. At first you just want to finish the Atticus Pund story - but isn't that the point? Horowitz is demonstrating the reader's sheer delight in reading a traditional detective story. Here is the paradox of the author stuck with a detective and a series which the public can't get enough of, but which the author is totally fed up with. All he wants to do is kill him off and write some serious fiction. But as with Conan Doyle or Christie, this is the very thing which has made them great. I thoroughly enjoyed the book - both murder stories. Horowitz is a masterful writer and is particularly good at getting the reader to care about his characters and to enter their world. I thought his last book, Moriarty, was brilliantly written but let down by it's own cleverness. Clearly readers were irritated by the huge twist near the end. I wonder if the self analysis which seems to be going on beneath the layers of voices in Magpie Murders, is an answer to that criticism. Horowitz is such a good writer he can turn his mind to most detective/mystery/adventure styles - Sherlock Holmes, James Bond etc. But it's almost too easy for him. Perhaps he would like to do something different, and yet he seems to understand the reader's insatiable appetite for more and more of the same. I did hesitate before reading this book because I was so annoyed by the way he set the reader up for a fall in Moriarty. But I am glad I did. He stuck with the story - if on two levels, and the reader was taken into his confidence. The artifice or trickery was for our pleasure, not the author's joke at the reader's expense. The two stories interlinked in a clever way. I thought it worked well and recommend the book to others.

El libro llegó en perfecto estado. Es un libro de bolsillo, tiene el tamaño de letra acorde a esto.

La construcción es sorprendente

Gutes Buch mit verständlichem Englisch und guter Story

Storia originale, coinvolgente. Personaggi raccontati con grande maestria e la scrittura è scorrevole e di grande qualità. Come sempre, Horowitz si dimostra un’ottima penna. Consigliatissimo