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Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Digging into deadly secrets
Dang that Anthony Horowitz — he so confoundingly makes us think about every single word from start to finish, makes us work so hard to try to understand what goes on inside Atticus Pund's mind in 1955 even as Susan Ryeland struggles to sleuth how the murders in Pund's world hold clues to murders in her fictional 2025. Understand any of that? Great, then you know where we're going, and you're delighted with a successor to Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders. Don't have a notion where you are? Despair not, for you have an amazingly awesome murder mystery ahead of you. Anna Lythgoe photo Anthony Horowitz's mystery-within-a-mystery novels starring book editor Susan Ryeland demand the reader's attention. Horowitz is the 70-year-old devilishly-clever English author who created Foyle's War, adapted novels for Midsomer Murders, wrote new novels featuring Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, writes murder mysteries in which he plays himself as an always-a-step-behind, fumbling, bumbling John Watson-type chronicler to former cop Daniel Hawthorne. He wrote Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, both turned into magnificent series on PBS, and now here's Marble Hall Murders, even more complex than its predecessors. Though just oh-so far beyond good. Do not under any circumstances call it The Marble Hall Murders. The word 'The' does not appear in any of Horowitz's titles. You have been warned. Susan Ryeland is a book editor living in our time. It was her job to edit the Atticus Pund murder mysteries written by Alan Conway, a very difficult man who obviously ripped off Pund from Hercule Poirot, but did a very good job of doing so. Pund identified as a Greek Jew living in Germany who survived the Holocaust and ended up as a private detective in London in the 1950s. Conway despised the Pund books, always seeing himself not as a mystery writer but as a literary genius whose works would be dissected in PhD theses at Oxford and Cambridge. Alas… Conway wrote Pund with characters and events drawn from his real life. In Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, Horowitz gifted us with full-length Pund books-within-a-book, in which were hidden clues about who murdered whom in the world inhabited by Conway and Ryeland. Major characters in Pund's life mirrored people in Conway's life. That's why so many actors played dual roles. Still with us? Marble Hall Murders drives us much further up the wall because Ryeland finds herself reading not a book-within-a-book, but a Pund book delivered in four chunks of 10,000 to 30,000 words each, interspersed with contemporary adventures in which even Ryeland became suspected of — no, wait, can't get ahead of ourselves. As Marble Hall Murders begins, (spoiler alert) Alan Conway is dead, Susan Ryeland is an unemployed book editor in England no longer living in Crete with her one true love, and she gets hired to edit a 'continuation' novel — the Conway estate having approved the Pund books continuing through author Eliot Crace. Crace has a three-book contract, despite which he calls his first book-in-progress Pund's Last Case, poor Atticus having a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Eliot is the ne'er-do-well grandson of Miriam Crace, whose dozens of books about a tiny-sized human family made her the most adored children's author in the universe and controller of a vast fortune. She died in her sleep of a heart attack 20 years before. Marblee Hall Murders In Pund's Last Case, an exceedingly rich English woman who's dying asks Pund to come to her estate in France to sort something so evil — well, she'll tell him when he gets there. And Pund arrives, hours after the woman dies of a heart attack immediately after drinking her daily tea that tasted a little funny. Crace accuses his rather large and scurrilous family of having murdered granny Miriam — each character in Pund's Last Case is based on a character in the Crace family, and Eliot promises the book will reveal who murdered granny Crace. Need to ask again, are you still with us? Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. The Crace family can't afford a scandal — Miriam's books are having a resurgence, and Netflix has proposed a $200-million series of movies and a multi-year TV show. Susan Ryeland is caught up in the middle of all this mess, desperately trying to decipher who among so many nasty people in a piece of fiction is the avatar of a killer in her world. Horowitz plays fair. The clues are there, both in Atticus Pund's world and in Susan Ryeland's, if only we are keen enough and sufficiently sharp to catch them. Anthony, you are a devious and wicked fellow — do keep it up. Retired Free Press reporter Nick Martin was dismayed to learn that Susan Ryeland does not approve of pets sleeping on their humans' bed at night. He had been unaware such attitudes even existed.
Wall Street Journal
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
Mysteries: ‘Marble Hall Murders' by Anthony Horowitz
Fans of the inventive English author Anthony Horowitz have reason to celebrate the arrival of 'Marble Hall Murders,' the third entry in a terrific series started in 2016. This book, like the earlier two, is partly narrated by Susan Ryeland, a London editor who had coaxed the crime writer Alan Conway—a bitter, malicious man who was eventually murdered—through a popular series of detective novels set in the 1950s. After adventures in marriage and hotelkeeping on the Greek island of Crete, Susan is back in London, solo, working for another publishing house and helping a young writer named Eliot Crace continue the series Alan started. Alan based his characters on real-life people in ways meant to expose their most shameful secrets. This led to his death and, for Susan, near-fatal injuries. Eliot is the grandson of Miriam Crace, a phenomenally successful children's author whose books are available in 47 languages, 'including Latin and Welsh.' Contrary to her public image, Miriam, who recently died of an apparent heart attack, was a despicable matriarch who ruled her extended family with an iron claw. Susan detects that Eliot, in his work-in-progress, is mimicking Alan's method of depicting real crimes and scandals. The editor foresees big trouble for Eliot and herself: 'When was I ever going to learn?' she wonders. Few other writers combine suspense and satire as smoothly as Mr. Horowitz, a writer who specializes in clever literary devices. As with its predecessors, 'Marble Hall Murders' is told half in Susan's first-person voice and half in the third-person voice of the manuscript under her purview. Thus we get two separate mysteries, twice the surprise—and double the payoff.
New York Times
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
3 Nerve-Shredding New Thrillers
Marble Hall Murders Horowitz's diabolically clever MARBLE HALL MURDERS (Harper, 592 pp., $28) begins as Susan Ryeland, a British book editor, starts reading the newest installment in a crime series featuring a Poirot-like detective named Atticus Pünd. The book looks promising — the plot is enticing, the writing sharp, the detective as canny as ever. But Susan soon realizes that what she's reading isn't 'just a cheerful murder mystery bringing back a much-loved character,' as she puts it, but rather a 'bubbling cauldron' of hatred, infidelity, greed and murder drawn from the troubled past of the writer, Eliot Crace. Eliot, who has been hired to continue the series following the untimely death of the original author, is squirrelly, pugnacious and keen to make trouble. 'I've put in a secret message,' he says of his work-in-progress. 'If you can work out the puzzle, you'll know the truth about what happened.' That's only the beginning of Horowitz's multilevel romp, which serves up an elegant plot while lampooning writers, publishers, murderers, rich people and golden-age mystery stories. It's a cliché to describe prolific authors as being at the top of their game (and often seems to suggest the opposite), but it's true here. 'Marble Hall Murders' is as cunning a mystery as you'll read all year. The best thing is Susan herself. Stubborn and fearless, she has high literary standards, a fondness for Garamond typeface — and a dangerous habit of collecting enemies. The Death of Us 'I found out that they had you the day after my 55th birthday,' says Isabel Nolan, the part-time narrator of THE DEATH OF US (Viking, 336 pp., $27), Dean's devastating exploration of the long-term effects of violence. The 'you' in question is a particularly nasty rapist and murderer named Nigel Wood, who attacked Isabel and her then-husband, Edward Hennessy, 25 years earlier in the house they shared in London. They survived, at least physically; many of Wood's other victims did not. Wood, an outwardly unremarkable retired police officer who is now 70, has pleaded guilty and is facing sentencing; Isabel, Edward and others have been invited to provide statements at the court proceeding. Many of them have waited years for this moment. Their stories are devastating. By focusing on the victims rather than on, say, the drama around the police investigation, this wrenching book subverts the normal conventions of a serial killer novel. It's an unusual and effective approach. Threaded throughout is the story of Isabel and Edward's early years together, and the promise of their marriage, blighted forever by that awful night. What's it like for them to meet again like this, years after their divorce? What will happen when Edward finally speaks about something he's never before discussed publicly? 'Life is not a thread that can be unpicked,' Isabel muses, again imagining that she's speaking directly to the attacker. 'But all the same: If I had never met Edward, I might never have met you.' Ruth Run Meet Ruth, a plucky 25-year-old cyber-criminal who learns, via a series of middle-of-the-night phone alerts, that her ingenious scheme has been discovered. 'It was time to delete everything and go,' she says. 'My years of peaceful bank robbery were done.' Thus begins the funny and suspenseful RUTH RUN (Penguin Press, 304 pp., $29), which tells the story of Ruth's efforts to elude capture. Just as you might in such a situation, Ruth scrubs the data from her devices, sets off the fire alarm and sprinkler at her company and drives off in her grubby Honda Civic, buoyed by the knowledge that she has $250 million stashed away in Switzerland, Belize and the Caymans. Her escape is complicated by the efforts of a government official named Mike, who has been semi-stalking her for some time, fantasizing about how she will one day work for him. 'I'd spent five years installing and upgrading surveillance in Ruth's apartment, never imagining having to disassemble it piece by expensive piece while she drove away from me at 67 miles per hour,' he whines. Mike thinks he's a puppet master, but he's really a dummy. As she tries to outsmart him and other pursuers, Ruth runs into a slew of unusual characters, including a long-haul truck driver with a dark secret and a load of explosives, a group of religious zealots on a commune and an elderly dog. We're on her side the whole way. Is it necessary for computer illiterates to understand the technical details of how Ruth deployed (among other things) a 'hacked microchip' to steal from 'legacy mainframes' operated by the nation's banks? Kaufman devotes many pages to complex machinations, but this is one of those times where you'll just have to trust the author.
Sydney Morning Herald
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Raw-dogging' a flight? I can't think of anything worse
Faced with a 15-hour flight, as I was last week, I decided to treat it as an opportunity to catch up on a few recent movies. Stupidly selecting a seat right near the noisy galley and a crew of flight attendants who chatted all night, my only compensation for lack of sleep was the movie marathon. I'd missed most of the Oscar contenders this year, so it was a treat to lie back and immerse myself in the best of filmmaking, even if the screen and sound weren't optimum. The silver lining for me on every flight, particularly on those airlines with a good selection of movies, including art-house and international productions, is the entertainment. If there's anything to look forward to on a long flight (apart from the destination at the end of it) it's the chance to hunker down and tune in to films I've missed during the year. It's not really the way directors want us to see their work, but if I like a movie, I rewatch it afterwards on a larger screen. Often, I've loved a film on the plane, only to really dislike it when on the ground – there's evidence flying heightens your emotions, skewing normal judgment. I judge the length of flights by how many movies (and some TV series) I can squeeze in. The trip to Johannesburg from Sydney looked like it might be a five or six-movie flight. I'd also brought along a thick book to read, Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz, who wrote Foyle's War for TV. (If you're looking for a brilliant writer, he's highly recommended, and there are eight of his crime novels to enjoy.)
The Age
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘Raw-dogging' a flight? I can't think of anything worse
Faced with a 15-hour flight, as I was last week, I decided to treat it as an opportunity to catch up on a few recent movies. Stupidly selecting a seat right near the noisy galley and a crew of flight attendants who chatted all night, my only compensation for lack of sleep was the movie marathon. I'd missed most of the Oscar contenders this year, so it was a treat to lie back and immerse myself in the best of filmmaking, even if the screen and sound weren't optimum. The silver lining for me on every flight, particularly on those airlines with a good selection of movies, including art-house and international productions, is the entertainment. If there's anything to look forward to on a long flight (apart from the destination at the end of it) it's the chance to hunker down and tune in to films I've missed during the year. It's not really the way directors want us to see their work, but if I like a movie, I rewatch it afterwards on a larger screen. Often, I've loved a film on the plane, only to really dislike it when on the ground – there's evidence flying heightens your emotions, skewing normal judgment. I judge the length of flights by how many movies (and some TV series) I can squeeze in. The trip to Johannesburg from Sydney looked like it might be a five or six-movie flight. I'd also brought along a thick book to read, Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz, who wrote Foyle's War for TV. (If you're looking for a brilliant writer, he's highly recommended, and there are eight of his crime novels to enjoy.)
