On the television front Horowitz says, Magpie Murders has been adapted into a six-episode series with Lesley Manville as the editor Susan Ryeland and Tim McMullan as Atticus Pünd, the detective in the book within the book. The Full Monty director, Peter Cattaneo, helms the show.

I’ve really enjoyed Horowitz’ crime capers in the past as he has played with the form: the Susan Ryeland series ( Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders) which interpose Atticus Pund’s fiction-within-a-fiction detective story within Ryeland’s own investigations; and the Hawthorne and Horowitz Mysteries ( The Word is Murderand The Sentence is Death) where our author guest stars as himself tagging along with the erstwhile Detective Daniel Hawthorne. Let’s be honest, these are not series which are going to win literary prizes, but they are well crafted and fun who-dunnits which also offer a sneak into the literary and publishing world. There was no danger that the book would come out like an ego trip, says Horowitz. “At the end of the day, I’m only the narrator, not the main character. You do not learn a great deal about me in the book. The book is about Hawthorne, and me writing about Hawthorne. What it does allow me to do as a writer, is to write about the nature of a whodunit.”From the latest Scandinavian serial killer to Golden Age detective stories, we love our crime novels! Alex Rider is now in its second season based on Eagle Strike adapted by Guy Burt with Otto Farrant returning to play the titular character. There is also Toby Stevens playing the chief antagonist. “I know the first season was popular in India.” Forever Bond The literary festival is described in loving detail in the book. “I love literary festivals. They are the one thing I have missed the most during the time of COVID-19. There is something wonderful about people coming together for the love of reading and books. The Jaipur Literature Festival is one of my favourites. I was amazed that thousands of people come to this city out of love for literature and books. There is something wonderfully civilised about it. In a world where there is so much discord, concern, worry and fear, and where politics seem to be out of control, it is heartening that there are people who want to come together to talk about stories. Except for the atrocities of World War II, there hasn’t been a murder on the Channel Island of Alderney from time immemorial. The staging of the Alderney Lit Fest brings that streak to a decided end. And A Line to Kill– the third installment of the Hawthorne and Horowitz series – is just that: all the joy and entertainment of a Sunday night cosy detective show.

The beginning of the novel, when Bond is captured and Mr Big’s henchman, Teehee, breaks Bond’s finger, makes me sweat when I read it. There are, however, parts of the book which I would not write myself, which we would feel uncomfortable reading.” Horowitz says he sees no need to prune out the uncomfortable bits from the legacy sequel as it is not the way he thinks.Lesley is absolutely wonderful and Cattaneo is one of the most brilliant directors I’ve worked with.” Arriving on Alderney, Hawthorne and Horowitz soon meet the festival’s other guests—an eccentric gathering that includes a bestselling children’s author, a French poet, a TV chef turned cookbook author, a blind psychic, and a war historian—along with a group of ornery locals embroiled in an escalating feud over a disruptive power line.

The snippets of life in the publishing world, even if the meeting at the “surprisingly shabby and unattractive” offices of Penguin Random House didn’t have the glamour of the meeting with Spielberg in an earlier novel! I did love Horowitz’ own puzzlement – which mirrored my own – at the possibility of coming up with a series of titles combining grammar and death! What might be next? The Verb Is Finite? The Modifier Is Dangling? When I recognised the Christie-style set-up, I immediately wondered if this was a step too far for Horowitz. The Susan Ryeland series is already an ingenious and compelling homage to the world’s most successful author of fiction and I wondered if A Line to Kill would blur the boundaries between the two series. It does not and each in is, in its own unique way, providing contemporary crime fiction with a much-needed revitalisation.

Neither easy nor difficult

Many thanks to Anthony Horowitz and Penguin Books for the chance to read this ARC, courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. The sleuth and the scribbler are there to promote the first of their three proposed Inspector Hawthorne novels. Horowitz sums up the rest of the event’s participants: “an unhealthy chef, a blind psychic, a war historian, a children’s author, a French performance poet. . . . Not quite the magnificent seven.” Then there’s Charles le Mesurier, the online-gaming entrepreneur bankrolling the event, a wealthy and boorish figure who patronizes or taunts most of the men he meets and, though married, puts the moves on every pretty woman.