{"id":6897,"date":"2025-04-10T05:45:25","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T05:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/6897\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T05:45:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T05:45:25","slug":"i-hate-the-phrase-cosy-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/6897\/","title":{"rendered":"I hate the phrase ‘cosy crime’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Horowitz<\/a> is feeling \u201cthe passage of time\u201d. He has just celebrated his 70th birthday, and next month will mark 25 years since his first Alex Rider, the famed teenage spy series that gets children into reading<\/a> and has sold almost 20 million copies worldwide.<\/p>\n

His new novel, Marble Hall Murders \u2013 the third in a trilogy of Golden-Age style crime series featuring the murder-solving book editor, Susan Ryeland \u2013 marks the closing of another chapter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a feeling that\u2019s the end\u201d of the series, says Horowitz, over Zoom from behind his writing desk at his home in Richmond, west London. There are bookshelves stacked with his novels framing his head, and he wears his trademark baseball cap \u2013 black today, to match his T-shirt. \u201cI like trilogies and maybe that\u2019s enough thinking up variations on the book inside the book,\u201d he adds, referring to the metafictional trademark of the Susan Ryeland stories.<\/p>\n

He hadn\u2019t actually planned to follow Magpie Murders (2016) and Moonflower Murders (2020) with a third instalment. But that changed after he turned both books into hit dramatisations for the BBC<\/a>, where his wife, Jill Green \u2013 who he\u2019s been married to since 1988 \u2013 is the executive producer.<\/p>\n

On the last day of filming Moonflower Murders, in December 2023, Leslie Manville<\/a>, who plays Ryeland, had such a great time she asked Horowitz to do a third \u2013 then the whole crew chimed in, too. \u201cI said, \u2018Well, I\u2019ll need to adapt a novel but I haven\u2019t written one.\u2019 So I had to write a 550-page novel very, very quickly, and then adapt it into a TV screenplay, also very quickly. By the end, I felt my head had shrunk so my brain was the size of a walnut. But I think the urgency of it led me to have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we talk, it\u2019s week three of filming Marble Hall Murders. \u201cI\u2019m watching the rushes [raw footage] of the show and it\u2019s got an energy and a pizzazz that I think is just extraordinary,\u201d he says. I can vouch for the book being a fun read, too. Susan Ryeland is working on a final book about the celebrated detective Atticus P\u00fcnd, and \u2013 without revealing too much of the Magpie Murders twist \u2013 the topic of continuation novels comes up, in the vein of one of Horowitz\u2019s Bond or Sherlock Holmes stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s strange how characters can become bigger than their authors, but popular fiction is absolutely crowded with them,\u201d writes Horowitz as protagonist Ryeland. <\/p>\n

\"MagpieLeslie Manville as Susan Ryeland and Tim McMullan as Atticus P\u00fcnd in \u2018Magpie Murders\u2019 (Photo: BBC\/Eleventh Hour Films\/Nick Wall)<\/p>\n

In our call, he adds: \u201cYou don\u2019t talk about the Anthony Horowitz books so much as the Alex Rider books. Characters do, as it were, outlive their authors, and are more interesting. After all, their creators just sit in a room, scribbling.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has \u201cscribbled\u201d more than 60 books in his near-five decade career \u2013 his first, The Sinister Secret of Frederick K.Bower, in 1979. He later embarked on his Susan Ryeland metafictional trilogy because he wanted to write about his career as a writer.<\/p>\n

He attempted a non-fiction version, with an eye to apeing one of his favourite books, William Goldman\u2019s Adventures in the Screen Trade, but got bored after three pages. \u201cSo, I thought, \u2018Why can\u2019t I write a murder mystery that poses questions, such as: why is murder entertainment when it\u2019s a book? I have been using the murder-mystery format \u2013 the \u2018whodunnit\u2019 \u2013 in ways that have never been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t call his work \u201ccosy crime\u201d. He says: \u201cI have a real dislike of the phrase \u2018cosy crime\u2019. A crime is never cosy. You don\u2019t stick a knife somebody or shoot them in a cosy manner. Crime is horrible. I\u2019m writing metafiction. You are both reading a book and reading a book about the book at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cosy crime genre is successful, all the same \u2013 especially, I point out, for celebrities-turned-authors, such as Richard Osman <\/a>and Reverend Richard Coles. Where does he stand on celebs muscling in on his turf? <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always had a certain envy,<\/strong> shall we say, of famous people who move into either children\u2019s books or into crime fiction. I\u2019ve had to work terribly hard to get noticed in this world. But if you are a celebrity you immediately suck up all the publicity, book space, and everything else,\u201d he says. \u201cBut this is envy, it\u2019s not judgment.\u201d His ethos is: if the books are good, well, good luck to the writer. \u201cRichard Osman\u2019s book was very, very good\u2026 But if a celebrity writes a bad children\u2019s book, and that children\u2019s book takes up a space, I think it\u2019s fair enough to say, \u2018Damn!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Horowitz is a fast, forthright talker with firm views on everything from smartphones in schools (\u201cIt\u2019s a no-brainer; they should go nowhere near schools\u201d) and VAT on private schools (\u201cThat\u2019s performative, not helpful\u201d) to arts funding. Hay Festival\u2019s decision to axe its sponsorship deal with Baillie Gifford, over the investment management company\u2019s links with fossil fuel firms, was \u201cretrogressive, irresponsible, and entirely selfish\u201d. He hails Lisa Nandy, the UK\u2019s Culture Secretary, for lambasting the boycott movement that has targeted recent literature festivals. \u201cShe\u2019s doing a good job, I think.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"Horowitz hadn\u2019t planned to follow Magpie Murders (2016) and Moonflower Murders
(2020) with a third instalment<\/p>\n

Next, we\u2019re onto the reading crisis among young people \u2013 a survey in 2024 by the National Literacy Trust<\/a> shows children\u2019s reading enjoyment has fallen to its lowest level in almost two decades. \u201cIf children don\u2019t read, then, eventually, the whole oasis will dry out,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Horowitz is riled about the tyranny of the screen. \u201cSmartphones are doing such terrible damage to their concentration. I would be happy to see a world where smartphones were kept from young people until they were 16. Like alcohol, sex, and other things which are not necessarily bad for you, but can be bad for you when you\u2019re young,\u201d he says, without a shred of faith that the Government will impose any form of restrictions.<\/p>\n

That said, he is anxious not to come across as \u201caggressive or restrictive\u201d. He adds: \u201cI don\u2019t like bans. I don\u2019t like censorship. I don\u2019t like things that prevent people from doing what they want. But I do believe in safeguarding young people.\u201d <\/p>\n

In 2023, in the wake of the furore over Puffin editing Roald Dahl\u2019s novels<\/a> to remove negative references to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race, Horowitz told a literary festival audience that he wouldn\u2019t be writing any more \u201cugly villains\u201d. (The eponymous Granny in Horowitz\u2019s 2015 children\u2019s horror book was not only \u201chorribly mean\u201d but also \u201cphysically repulsive\u201d, according to the blurb.) What else has he changed when he writes? \u201cWhen I am describing a character, I am very painfully aware of certain words and certain tropes which are no longer considered to be acceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I am against writers being bullied into submission, or being censored, or rewritten \u2013 especially writers who are no longer alive \u2013 I think it is a foolish writer who ignores the way society is going. It seems not unreasonable that [when writing] a description of somebody of a different ethnicity, nationality, or gender, I should be aware of what and what is not now considered acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds: \u201cI will write what I want to write, but I\u2019m not stupid. I am not self-destructive. I\u2019ve been writing for a very long time. I do not wish to see myself under siege.\u201d<\/p>\n

With another six books to come in his Hawthorne and Horowitz series \u2013 plus \u201cother books\u201d he is in discussions about with his publisher \u2013 time may well be passing, but he is making the most of it. You\u2019ll keep writing, I ask? \u201cUntil the end. \u2018Til the end,\u201d he repeats, with a smile.<\/p>\n

\u2018Marble Hall Murders<\/a>\u2018, by Anthony Horowitz (Century, \u00a322<\/strong>)<\/strong> is out now <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Horowitz is feeling \u201cthe passage of time\u201d. He has just celebrated his 70th birthday, and next month…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[4036,3444,4037,389,4038,4039,77,466,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-6897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-book-interviews","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-books-features","11":"tag-children","12":"tag-childrens-books","13":"tag-crime-fiction","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-interviews","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114312087062519190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}