British Author Anthony Horowitz's "Magpie Murders" Is Two Who Done It Murder Mysteries in One

Anthony Horowitz (b UK 1955) is a very prestigious novelist and screenwriter.  His main genre is mystery and murder but he is also a writer of young adult novels.  The Ian Fleming Estate has authorized him to write two James Bond novels and he's penned two Sherlock Holmes mysteries.  The marvelous PBS mystery series FOYLE's WAR was created & written by Horowitz.  MAGPIES MURDERS is soon to be a major BBC1 TV series.  The MAGPIE MURDERS starts out with a novel approach.  Susan Ryeland, an  editor for a small publishing firm is settling in for a cozy read with wine, chips & fags while the rain hammers away against her window panes.  What an enticing intro to an old fashioned British mystery set in the 40s post WWII.  The quaint countryside town is replete with its ancient church, the vicar & his wife, local pubs, haughty aristocracy residing in a manor that lords over the rural landscape.  There's an eclectic cast of eccentric locals.  This is a small town where all the locals know each other, look out for each other and keep their noses in everyone's business.  The death of the longtime housekeeper for the Lord Pye of the manor may or may not be accidental. But the gruesome beheading days later of Lord Pye by the sword from the suit of armor in his hallway brings Inspector Atticus Pund to add his inimitable skills to aid the local ineffectual Inspector Chubb.  A surprising twist comes with the suicide of the Magpie author, Alan Conway just as Susan & the publisher discover the final chapters are missing.  Conway death by leaping to his death is ruled a suicide.  Something clues Susan into believing Alan was murdered.  She becomes an obsessed sleuth determined to get to the bottom of things.  The bookend contemporary tale of Susan's life & her immersion into a Sherlock crime solver is a clever devise.  The reader can hone their own skills at surmising suspects & their motives.  However, the murder mystery wrapped around an old fashioned murder muddled the MAGPIE MURDERS and made an initially intriguing who done flop into a crashing bore.