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joycet 's review for:
Magpie Murders
by Anthony Horowitz
I went back and forth on this book. I loved, as others did, the old English mystery with Atticus Puend. I was less interested in the story of Susan solving the larger arc. It did not ring as true to me. I think it is harder to write authentic story lines in modern situations than it is in the countryside, pre-internet and mobile everything.
The denouement was silly too.(no spoilers) I found myself saying 'x murdered y for that reason?' It's kind of up there with Dr. Evil wanting $1million dollars in the modern era. It might have worked once, but it didn't actually make sense. Unless that is Horowitz' point. I was struck by conversation Susan had with Detective Lock. The whole book seemed to revolve around that conversation. Not the plot. It didn't really affect the plot. But there was more to this book than a plot. It was meta, and trying to be meta, and making you wonder how much we were getting a third layer of Horowitz mimicking his own life through Conway and into the book within a book. He even tried that on a bit in his afterward. And yet, while I see how clever he is, I also want to say - look, if you're really interested in having fun with language, go check out the Oulipo. Now those folks take this stuff seriously. On the other hand, if you're writing whodunnits then let us just enjoy our mystery and our bit of fun. Let us get lost in the story and the puzzle. Those asides into the outside world lurking at the edges aren't fun, they don't really add anything and they seem to be there mostly for the author's conceit. And the whole point of this book is how the author's ego spoils everyone else's fun, innit?
The denouement was silly too.(no spoilers) I found myself saying 'x murdered y for that reason?' It's kind of up there with Dr. Evil wanting $1million dollars in the modern era. It might have worked once, but it didn't actually make sense. Unless that is Horowitz' point. I was struck by conversation Susan had with Detective Lock. The whole book seemed to revolve around that conversation. Not the plot. It didn't really affect the plot. But there was more to this book than a plot. It was meta, and trying to be meta, and making you wonder how much we were getting a third layer of Horowitz mimicking his own life through Conway and into the book within a book. He even tried that on a bit in his afterward. And yet, while I see how clever he is, I also want to say - look, if you're really interested in having fun with language, go check out the Oulipo. Now those folks take this stuff seriously. On the other hand, if you're writing whodunnits then let us just enjoy our mystery and our bit of fun. Let us get lost in the story and the puzzle. Those asides into the outside world lurking at the edges aren't fun, they don't really add anything and they seem to be there mostly for the author's conceit. And the whole point of this book is how the author's ego spoils everyone else's fun, innit?