I really enjoyed this. It was fun and clever and really very well done. The first half was a flawless Christie-esque ‘cozy’; the second half was a modern whodunnit that acknowledged how truly unlikely such things are to actually happen to real people: ‘But I wasn’t a detective. I was an editor - and, until a week ago, not a single one of my acquaintances had managed to die in an unusual and violent manner.’ I was amused by the main character’s mentions of Horowitz’s own television shows - realistically, a modern murder-mystery enthusiast really would be a fan of ‘Midsomer Murders’ as well as similar shows, but it still seemed so consciously self-referential that it made me laugh.

Magpie Murders is well worth reading.