So, I am a PBS fanatic—If I could magically become the lady on the Masterpiece Mystery lead-in who faints on the tombstone with a faint “oooo,” I would do it! Recently, I watched Magpie Murders with enjoyment and went in search of more by the author, Anthony Horowitz.
Close to Death did not disappoint. Like Magpie Murders, the timeline in Close to Death is not standard. You’ll need to pay attention to the cues. Not that the book is confusing—not at all. Horowitz did a wonderful job of segueing from one timeline to another, and the whole thing makes perfect sense.
In the tradition of Agatha Christy, the tale is a kind of closed-circle story where you have both a seemingly impossible crime and a specific circle of suspects. We begin in a well-to-do cul-de-sac community–the term close is used in the UK for a dead-end street or cul-de-sac. So the title is a nice play on words that Americans might not immediately see.
I can’t say much more without giving away some of the things I found most enjoyable. But I have to mention the chess master and his wife from Hong Kong, the barrister, the dentist to the stars and his invalid wife, the two ladies who operate a bookstore specializing in cozy mysteries, the odd gardener who doesn’t seem to fit—along with the neighbor from hell who disrupts the peace of the close with loud music, irreverent kids, and his plan to ‘improve’ the property by building a swimming pool. Add a novelist desperate for a new book and a secretive detective who agrees to share the tale of a past case. If you think you see where this is going, you will be partly right—but I’ll bet not completely. Close to Death is an intelligent mystery worth more than one read.
If, like me, you enjoyed the TV version of Magpie Murders, don’t miss the sequel. Moonflower Murders is a 2020 novel by Horowitz. The TV version aired in the U.S. on September 15 on my local PBS channel. Moonflower Murders brings back some of the same characters and is the second in Horowitz’s Susan Ryeland series. Of course, you can read the series in novel form—Magpie Murders was released in 2016, and Moonflower Murders in 2020. There is a third novel in the series, Marble Hall Murders, expected to be released in 2025. Whether this third book will also find its way to PBS…is still a mystery.
