Great Books

 For a long while, Anthony Horowitz has worked with the actor Lesley Manville. When Manville recently said, "I want another project," the wish caused Horowitz to grab a pen. He realized he had an idea.

The character Horowitz has constructed--Susan Ryeland--is unusual in crime fiction. She is past fifty, romantically unattached, only semi-employed. She is in no way "defeated." She has a spirit of optimism and adventure; without becoming cloying, Horowitz shows that Ryeland is an admirable, enterprising person who just happens not to resemble Harry Bosch, John Rebus, Guido Brunetti, Adam Dalgliesh, or Armand Gamache.

Ryeland's calling is not to solve murders; it is to edit books. But we can happily suspend disbelief. In Ryeland's world, publishing is an activity that is inextricably linked with killing. The bodies keep piling up.

I don't think that Horowitz has written his new novel as a response to the Alice Munro saga--the revelations seem too recent--but, oddly, the new Horowitz plot can be read as a kind of Munro allegory. Ryeland is introduced to the tale of Miriam Crace, a literary legend. In her lifetime, Crace was an all-but-sainted writer for children. She invented a community--a "little world"--and told its tales--one tale after another and another and another. But sometimes international fame requires fuel from a monstrous ego. (Could this *always* be the case?) Miriam Crace was--in fact--a sociopath who terrorized her own family. And she may have been murdered.

As Ryeland investigates the Crace story, she finds herself fighting to save her own life. (Surprise!) It's part of the book's pleasure to realize that Ryeland never complains, never throws up her hands, never feels sorry for herself. She is always great company.

I can't begin to describe how clever Horowitz is in his final chapters. There's no way I would ever solve the murder on my own. Reading a Horowitz book feels like watching a terrific Julianne Moore performance; there is a sense of being in the presence of a brilliant mind. The artist has total control. The title is "Marble Hall Murders"; I loved this new book.