Magpie Murders
Anthony Horowitz
Orion, $32.99
It's hard to say why a publishing house should be such an effective setting for a crime novel, but this book about murder and manuscripts has a couple of distinguished precedents in P.D. James' Original Sin and Robert Galbraith's The Silkworm, where the passions, follies, egos and long-entangled relationships among writers, editors and publishers provide rich pickings for the crime writers who, by definition, know this scene very well and have a lot of skin in the game. Editor Susan Ryeland has received the typescript of the latest novel by Cloverleaf Books' star crime writer Alan Conway and settles down to read it, only to discover that the end is missing. What follows is a clever novel within a novel where clues are dropped like breadcrumbs and Ryeland must try to follow them. Horowitz tucks a pastiche of Golden Age detective fiction into a contemporary crime novel and there's plenty here to admire and enjoy.