This is a mystery novel for mystery novel lovers–a story within a story. A meta mystery. I will explain.

The book begins with Susan Ryeland in an unmade bed with a bottle of wine, tortilla chips and salsa, and a pack of cigarettes, reading a manuscript. She’s an editor, reading and reviewing author Alan Conway’s final story in his mystery series featuring detective Atticus Pünd (set in a small English village in the 1950s, his popular books are homages to Agatha Christie). It’s a good story–mysterious deaths, mysterious pasts, likable and unlikable suspects, rumors and gossip. But, frustratingly, it is missing the last chapter.

And so, Susan sets out to attempt to solve the puzzle–only to find out that there’s another hidden story within the novel, and some potential real life murders to deal with–and that the more she knows, the more danger she’s putting herself in.

The story within a story is eventually wrapped up, as is Susan’s framing narrative. It’s an impressive and clever feat, as the manuscript within the novel takes many descriptions and characterizations from Alan Conway’s own life–and untimely death. (Conway, it turns out, was a pretty horrible person. Much like the victim in his final novel.)  Magpie Murders is also a bit of a literary defense of the cozy mystery genre itself–it’s a self-conscious, ridiculously improbable, ingeniously plotted, and undeniably enjoyable story. 

HOW TO PURCHASE: AMAZON

NOVEL: Magpie Murders

AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2017

IMAGE: Book cover, HarperCollins