I can't remember where I saw Magpie Murders recommended, but it arrived in the mail for me last week and a quick read of the author bio revealed that Anthony Horowitz created two BBC mystery shows that I've watched in their entirety more than once: Midsomer Murders, which is like comfort food to me, and Foyle's War, which I truly love. Magpie Murders is a real treat for anyone who loves murder mysteries. For one thing, it includes two murder mysteries: there's a book within the book and both are murder mysteries. For another thing, it's full of references to all those other murder mystery books and programs and call-outs to all the major detectives (and their assistants). Perhaps oddly, I found the book within the book somewhat more satisfying than the book that encased it. This may be partly because I solved the murder in the outer book pretty quickly (and was fairly certain I was right, so all the investigating that followed felt a bit like a waste of time and diversionary tactic to me), while the murder in the inner book remained a mystery to me until its resolution at the end. But even so, the whole thing was an enjoyable read that I tore through in four days.
I made note of one little section rather later in the book because it resonated with something I've mentioned twice earlier this year: "Character names are important. ... [T]he name is often the first thing you learn about a character...." I read this and immediately thought of A Heart So White and The King of a Rainy Country, the two books I read earlier this year where the first person narrator goes unnamed for more than 100 pages into the books (but both of which mention the narrator's name on the back-cover blurbs!). I've become quite an observer of this. The first person narrator of Magpie Murders tells you her name quite early on in a way, though in fact, not until you have read roughly 200 pages consisting of the book within the book. This morning, I started The Good Soldier, in which the narrator names himself on the second page, in the fifth paragraph of the book, after he has named the three other central characters.
