OK this book has gone to the top of my favorite books of the summer! What a fun idea for writing a mystery. The mystery within the mystery novel. I will definitely go out and find some of Anthony Horowitz other stories to read. Of course I have loved every episode of Midsomer Murders on PBS for years, which he created, so I should not be surprised that he wrote such a creative novel.
As I mentioned there are multiple stories happening at the same time within this book. When we start reading with book editor, Susan Ryeland, the newest manuscript from the publisher's most popular author, Alan Conway, we are reading a fun and intriguing mystery story being spun. Then when Ryland reaches the end of her wine and the end of the chapters she has been sent, she realizes that something is amiss. She becomes a detective as she tries to figure out where things have gone wrong.
I will not give away any of the plot of this book, it is so much fun to read for yourself. I will say though that the writing style of this author is so incredible, that I took notes for future use when I will teach others about mystery novels. Horowitz has written some wonderful explanations of how a mystery novel works, how the detective thinks, and why readers are so fond of the genre of the mystery novel. Horowitz writes, "In a whodunit, when a detective hears that Sir Somebody Smith has been stabbed thirty-six times on a train or decapitated, they accept it as a quite natural occurrence.
....There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet, there are almost non in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area."
Horowitz asks the reader, "Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery and what is it that attracts us - the crime or the solution?" I think he has really captured something special in this book.
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