Anthony Horowitz

Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we enjoy it

I was on my own I’d deliberately allowed standards to slip. There’s something quite comforting about mess, especially when there’s no one else there to complain

I began to read the book as you are about to. But before you do that, I have to warn you.

This book changed my life

But I’m not sure it actually matters what we read. Our lives continue along the straight lines that have been set out for us.

But Magpie Murders really did change everything for me. I no longer live in Crouch End. I no longer have my job. I’ve managed to lose a great many friends. That evening, as I reached out and turned the first page of the typescript, I had no idea of the journey I was about to begin and, quite frankly, I wish I’d never allowed myself to get pulled on board. It was all down to that bastard Alan Conway.

But Magpie Murders wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all.

I hope I don’t need to spell it out any more. Unlike me, you have been warned.

It was a magpie. And it wasn’t alone. Looking a second time, Jeffrey saw that the tree was full of them. How many were there? It was difficult to see with the thick leaves obscuring them but in the end he counted seven and that put him in mind of the old nursery rhyme he had learned as a child.

One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,

Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
Never to be told

so many dreams, fears, resentments jumbled together in the darknes

But if there was one thing that life had taught him, it was the futility of making plans. Life had its own agenda