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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
mysterious
medium-paced
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
fast-paced
Cool concept but lacks a lot of heart. You’re not really routing for or against anyone more of the time. Plus! No spoilers! The information used to “out” the killer isn’t available to the reader at any point in the reading which is kinda a cop out in my opinion. Also feels very drawn out only for it to be wrapped up in like 2 pages.
An cool meta take on the murder mystery novel. Probably a 4.5 ⭐️
I really enjoyed Magpie Murders. It's a very clever novel, It manages to pay homage to the traditional whodunit in the style of Agatha Christie while at the same time subverting the genre.
We get two stories that run side by side, it's a novel within a novel. Susan Ryeland works as a book editor. She receives the manuscript for Magpie Murders the latest novel by Alan Conway who has written a succesful series of detective novels featuring Atticus Pünd (a German detective who is similar to Hercule Poirot). She reads the manuscript only to find its missing the final chapters. So she's left with a whodunit with no solution which is made even more inconvenient when the author dies in an apparent suicide.
Susan suspects that the death may not actually be suicide and we are left then with two whodunit stories. We get the story for Magpie Murders set in the 1940s by the fictional Alan Conway as well as the investigation into his death set in the present day.
Anthony Horwitz cleverly interweaves both stories and in doing so celebrates the genre and looks at how writers come up with their ideas while making a few knowing inclusions of various people.
A very clever and entertaining book taking a well established genre and looking at it in a new slightly skewed way and while it celebrates the works of people like Agatha Christie it also includes a very un Agatha Christie like revelation! A really great and satisfying read.
We get two stories that run side by side, it's a novel within a novel. Susan Ryeland works as a book editor. She receives the manuscript for Magpie Murders the latest novel by Alan Conway who has written a succesful series of detective novels featuring Atticus Pünd (a German detective who is similar to Hercule Poirot). She reads the manuscript only to find its missing the final chapters. So she's left with a whodunit with no solution which is made even more inconvenient when the author dies in an apparent suicide.
Susan suspects that the death may not actually be suicide and we are left then with two whodunit stories. We get the story for Magpie Murders set in the 1940s by the fictional Alan Conway as well as the investigation into his death set in the present day.
Anthony Horwitz cleverly interweaves both stories and in doing so celebrates the genre and looks at how writers come up with their ideas while making a few knowing inclusions of various people.
A very clever and entertaining book taking a well established genre and looking at it in a new slightly skewed way and while it celebrates the works of people like Agatha Christie it also includes a very un Agatha Christie like revelation! A really great and satisfying read.