Anthony Horowitz is considered a specialist in crime fiction and suspense in the UK for a reason. He wrote his first play in the school library at the age of 10, and his debut book, The Sinister Secret of Frederick K. Bower, was published when he was just 22 years old. In his native Britain, Horowitz’s books are consistently on the bestseller lists: publishers like to point out that he is as popular as JK Rowling.
Anthony Horowitz. Master of British crime fiction and espionage stories
Horowitz is not only great at inventing intriguing criminal riddles, but also has the advantage of creating cyclical forms and film scripts. His publishing series for children and adolescents, such as the series “Alex Rider” or “The Diamond Brothers”, have gained international popularity, and the writer seems to be still developing. The writer is known for preparing very carefully for his work: before writing a book or screenplay, he interviews experts and visits the places where the action is set to make the whole story more believable. He does so even with the books about Alex Rider, a 14-year-old spy working for MI6.
Horowitz’s work speaks for itself. Suffice it to say that in 2011, the heirs of Sir Arthur Conan Doyl entrusted him with the responsible task of writing new books about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The well-received House of Silk was the first to appear, and three years later, the novel “Moriarty” was published.
Also in 2014, the writer started working with the heirs of Ian Fleming, who commissioned him to write a new book about James Bond based on materials left by the original author. In 2015, the novel “Trigger Mortis” was released, and three years later the title “Forever and A Day” was released. Horowitz’s third book on Bond is called “With a Mind to Kill” and is scheduled for release in May 2022. Let us add that at the beginning of this year the writer was also appointed by Queen Elizabeth II a Knight of the Order of the British Empire for his contribution to literature. Horowitz also adapted three novels and nine short stories by Agatha Christie, and wrote screenplays for the series “Murder in Mind”, “Murders in Midomer”, “Murder Most Horrid”.
A master of suspense and adaptation for the first time really satisfied with his work
Horowitz often adapted his own books and stories for television. So far, he has done so with titles such as “Stormbreaker”, “The Diamond Brothers” and “South By South East”. However, it is the adaptation of the book “Magpie Murders” that he considers a truly exceptional achievement. As he revealed in an interview with Deadline, it took him two years and a half dozen sketches to write the script for the six-episode series. The work with the box-shaped construction of a criminal plot turned out to be extremely demanding here, but the writer believes that this time (and for the first time in his career) he managed to bite the figure really well.
“The whole concept of the book in the book is really difficult. In the book, two puzzles appear one after the other, and on the series, I wanted to show them at the same time. This gave me the opportunity to do things that I had never tried before. I managed to make two different timelines can coexist, and the viewer can go from one to the other in the blink of an eye “- he told
The plot of the series is actually interesting: the main character is the publisher Susan Ryeland, who is faced with a difficult task when it turns out that the successful writer Alan Conaway did not send the full version of his latest detective detective Atticus Punt to the publishing house – the last chapters are missing. Books about the series about this hero made Conawy a famous and very rich writer, the star of the publishing house. All readers are waiting tensely for the next part of his adventures, and the fate of the entire publishing house also depends on the publication of the next novel.
Meanwhile, the writer cannot be asked to send in the missing chapters, because he dies under mysterious circumstances: theoretically, he accidentally falls out of the tower and dies. The police do not know what to do with the case, so Susan travels to the late writer’s country estate to find the end of the detective story. There, he discovers that Conaway could not have committed suicide, and he made the people around him the heroes of his book. He comes to the conclusion that in the book he described the real events: that’s why he died, that’s why the last chapters are lost.
In the book, Susan appears only on the 250-page, but Horowitz wanted the heroine to appear in the series in the first scene. “So we added a new background to the events. It is very important to me that Susan here is a publisher, not a detective. It is also great to lead the character of a mature woman with a satisfying career and an engaging love life, because it does not happen so often on the screen” – he emphasized in the interview. Lesley Manville, Tim McMullan and Daniel Mays starred in the series, and British viewers have been watching the first episodes of the series since February 10. Nothing but to wait for the Polish premiere.
Source: Gazeta
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
