Whether you love old-fashioned

“cosy” mystery fiction dominated by quirky but suavely superior detectives, or incline more to contemporary whodunnits featuring flawed, accessibly human sleuths, Magpie Murders gives satisfaction. In this brilliantly original novel, writer Anthony Horowitz (author of Foyle’s War, Sherlock Holmes and other great TV series) offers readers a literary nesting doll that surprises wand delights.

The novel begins with literary editor Susan Ryeland settling in for a contented readthrough of the latest manuscript from her firm’s most profitable author, Alan Conway, whose specialty is vintage mystery novels: this one is a 1950s, Agatha Christie-style murder of a widely disliked estate housekeeper in the sleepy country village of Saxby-onAvon. Conway’s detective, a more lugubriously teutonic version of Christie’s mincing, fastidious Hercule Poirot, is crime scholar Atticus Pünd.

But after 200 pages, just before the big reveal, the manuscript abruptly ends. To find the missing pages, reluctant detective Susan must solve a real-life murder, while sorting out her love life and momentous career changes dependent thereon. The double plots contain red herrings and unexpected twists sufficient to enthrall the most demanding reader. You’ll want tea to accompany your read of the inner doll, a vodka tonic for the outer one.