I wasn’t planning to buy another book. My to-read list has been piling up for years, and between full-time work and kids, I barely finish anything these days - except maybe the odd Andy Weir when I’m lucky. Yes, I did manage to knock out Project Hail Mary in two weeks, but that’s the exception.
So there I was at a thrift store in Chennai, managing my kids’ time at the mall, browsing through books with one eye. “Murders” and “Anthony Horowitz” caught my attention. I remembered the name from years ago when he wrote The House of Silk, a new Sherlock mystery. The book was in decent shape - a paperback, though the back cover was pretty torn. I bargained with the vendor and got it at a steal.
I’ve always been a reluctant reader the last few years, but whodunits by Agatha Christie have been my thing since I was younger. I’ve read almost all of the Poirot and Marple mysteries. For some reason, the dull English country setting in each of the Poirot mysteries has always kept my attention up. I even have this ritual - finish the book, then catch up on the drama adaptation. The folks at ITV and BBC did a wonderful job with most of the Poirot adaptations.
I was immediately hooked to Magpie Murders. The whole plot-within-a-plot was pretty novel to me, and though I only managed about 40 pages during my time at the mall, I decided for some reason to finish this one. Kept it on my worktable for the next few weeks.
Right from the plot leading up to the murder, I couldn’t distinguish it from a Poirot mystery - except maybe the murder is a little more gruesome than Christie’s. This was my first Atticus Pünd mystery, but the comparison was obvious: Poirot ↔ Pünd, Hastings ↔ Fraser, Inspector Japp ↔ Chubb.
The novelty is in the typeface changes. You’re reading the 1950s murder mystery, completely absorbed, heading toward that classic moment where the detective gathers everyone to reveal the killer. And then - right before the revelation chapter - we switch back to the present.
Now we’re chasing a completely different mystery, driven in first person by the editor who’s worked on every Atticus Pünd book written by Alan Conway. The final chapter of the manuscript is missing, and she’s trying to figure out what happened to Conway. What made this really interesting is that the book is pretty self-aware - it references Poirot and openly discusses the similarities with Agatha Christie’s whodunits. The genius is in how clues hidden in the Pünd mystery become essential to solving the real-world case.
It took me close to six weeks to finish. Normally I’d manage an Agatha Christie whodunit within the week. This may feel like a pretty long duration to an avid reader, but remember - my reading cycle is quite off, and I’m just getting back into the groove.
Definitely recommend this to anyone who’s read at least one Christie or Poirot mystery, or for any true crime fan in general. I don’t think I’ll be reading another of Pünd’s mysteries in the near future, but it was a pretty good experience.
More importantly, it got me reading again. I’ve already lined up Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown for the coming weeks. And I can’t wait to catch up on the ITV mini-series adaptation of Magpie Murders as well. Here’s hoping the momentum holds.