Master of the detective genre Anthony Horowitz is a prolific writer whose work mystery fans have surely encountered—be it in print or on-screen. His career spans four decades, with short stories, standalone novels, bestselling book series like Alex Rider, and hours of television on MASTERPIECE Mystery! including Foyle’s War, Magpie Murders, and a sequel, Moonflower Murders, airing now through October 20th at 9/8c on MASTERPIECE on PBS. Scroll down to marvel at the accomplishments of this impressive British writer.
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He Wanted to Be a Writer Very Early On
Anthony Horowitz describes himself as a shy child who didn’t enjoy sports and preferred getting lost in a good book from his father’s library. “What [my father] would do was talk to me about his love of books, especially Dickens and Trollope. He never read to me, but the fact that he clearly adored it just seeped into me,” Horowitz says on his official website. And as he tells The Guardian (UK), “I knew from the age of eight that I wanted to be a writer. … I loved telling stories, and I wasn’t much good at anything ese.”
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Most Horowitz Books are for Children & Teens
The author has published over 50 books and is still going strong. Interestingly, the majority of his titles are for youth, including the Alex Rider series featuring a 14-year-old British boy who spies for MI6; The Diamond Brothers series sharing the adventures Tim and Nick Diamond, one a terrible PI and the other considerably more intelligent; and, The Power of Five books (known as The Gatekeepers in the US), a series of fantasy and suspense novels about five teens with powers to save humanity.
“I have great faith and optimism in young people,” Horowitz tells the CNET podcast I’m So Obsessed. “What I find valuable about young adult fiction is my sense that kids who read will grow up to be more fulfilled adults. People who don’t read and who have not discovered story and narrative lack a certain empathy and creativity.”
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He’s Written Continuations of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond
Horowitz was entrusted by both the Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming estates to continue both the Sherlock Holmes and James Bond adult novels, respectively. The former commissioned two new Holmes novels, The House of Silk (2011) and Moriarty (2014). The latter requested he write new Bond titles, which became Trigger Mortis (2015), Forever and a Day (2018), and With a Mind to Kill (2022).
“I think the whole secret of doing these continuation novels…is to remember that first of all, Doyle [or Fleming] is a much better writer than me,” he tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “You just do what [the author] set down and don’t break the envelope. At the same time, the challenge is to come up with a modern, fast-paced, original novel that people will enjoy but which won’t upset the real fans.”
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He’s Written Himself and His Family into Books
Horowitz inserts himself into a newer metafiction book series featuring a Detective Hawthorne. In the Hawthorne & Horowitz titles, the detective hires a writer named Anthony Horowitz who becomes a minor sidekick, but more importantly narrates the book. “Turning myself into the narrator, the Watson to Hawthorne’s Sherlock Holmes, turned the entire genre on its head,” Horowitz tells the Los Angeles Public Library. “Normally the author is powerful and all-knowing. But in these books, I’m the exact opposite. If Hawthorne doesn’t solve the crime, I won’t even have a book! Being in the book makes the whole thing feel fresh and new.”
Furthermore, “All my family have featured in my books,” Horowitz reveals on his website. “I parodied my father in Groosham Grange as the mad father in the wheelchair. The only one to get a whole book to herself was my mother’s mother in Granny. She was a tiny, matriarchal monster, wielding huge influence over our family and, although wealthy, extremely mean.”
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Horowitz’s Wife is His Boss
Executive Producer Jill Green has been married to Anthony Horowitz since 1988. They met through work at an ad agency; he “was the world’s worst advertising copywriter. She had the misfortune to be my account director, so from the very start she was my boss, and she still is,” he says on his website. “The first TV show we made together was Menace (2002). We soon realized that with me writing and Jill producing, we could control a whole project, which led to us making Foyle’s War,” Horowitz tells The Times (UK).
“Jill is also the person I trust with the first response to anything I write because she isn’t afraid to tell me when something doesn’t work. Susan Ryeland, the heroine of my book [Magpie Murders as well as Moonflower Murders], is not based on Jill but is not dissimilar in her characteristics as she is professional, independent, strong-minded and smart.”
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He’s Been Involved in Beloved British TV Series
Horowitz wrote scripts for Agatha Christie’s Poirot and for Midsomer Murders, and created the WW II era detective show Foyle’s War, which aired on MASTERPIECE between 2002 and 2015 starring Michael Kitchen. “There’s more technique to a script. You have to consider length, budget, audience, what is possible in production terms, he tells The Guardian (UK). “The other big difference is that TV/films are a collaboration, with a team of up to a 100 people (actors, producers, directors, etc.). But…they both tell stories. They both have to keep the audience gripped.”
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He Earned Edgars® for Foyle's War and Magpie Murders
Horowitz won the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award for ‘TV Episode Teleplay’ in 2016 for Foyle’s War and again in 2023 with Magpie Murders. (The Edgar® is considered the Oscars of mystery writing.) In the case of Magpie Murders, the metafiction story was first a bestselling novel with a literary murder mystery inside a real-world murder mystery; it took Horowitz over seven years to plan out and write it. His adaptation for television took another two years to turn 500+ pages into six hour-long episodes.
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He's Received an OBE and CBE from British Monarchy
Horowitz was first appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2014 by the then Prince of Wales. Seven years later, he received the higher-ranking Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) from King Charles III. Both awards recognized his services to literature. The King “asked me about what I was writing,” Horowitz tells the Independent (UK). “I mentioned there were more murders on the way, which seemed to amuse him.”
