TIME

Double homicide

Like many Agatha Christie novels, Magpie Murders references a nursery rhyme

“WHY IS IT THAT WE HAVE SUCH A NEED FOR murder mystery,” asks Susan Ryeland, the narrator of British author Anthony Horowitz’s new novel, Magpie Murders, “and what is it that attracts us—the crime or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable?”

If anyone should be able to answer these questions, it’s Susan.

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