Books: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

This is a good book. Or books, depending on how you look at it.

Susan is an editor at Cloverleaf books, and their star author is Alan Conway. He writes the Atticus Pünd novels—think "German Hercule Poirot set in the 50s" and you've pretty much got it. When Susan receives the manuscript for what will become the final Pünd adventure, we get to read it, too.

So Magpie Murders is really a book within a book.

And then Alan Conway seemingly commits suicide, but some stuff doesn't add up, and Susan becomes an amateur sleuth in her own right.

It's a cute book, if a bit gimmicky. I had the mystery figured out pretty much the moment the key clue was dropped, but then again I read enough of these kinds of things to do that. Susan is a bit of a dope, but she's personable, and at least she's self-aware enough to know she's out of her element. There is a tendency, however, to hang a lampshade on every convenient development: "I know it only happens in fiction, but it happened this time, too!" 🙄

Still, it's not terminally obnoxious. I'd recommend this one to those who enjoy Poirot and his ilk.