Anthony Horowitz is back with another brilliant Hawthorne mystery and an appearance at Harrogate (Image: Tim Merry \/ Daily Express)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n Arriving an hour late to interview Anthony Horowitz and rather expecting (and deserving) a rocket for my tardiness, I\u2019m delighted to find him poised over an A4 writing pad having spent the time completing a chapter outline and three pages of his next novel. \u201cI can work anywhere in the world with this,\u201d he gestures to his smart fountain pen containing, he tells me with a mischievous smile, a blend of ink known as \u2018Writer\u2019s Blood\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It couldn\u2019t be more fitting for the consummate Horowitz who, should he cut himself shaving, would surely bleed ink. First drafts are always written in long-hand before he transfers them onto a laptop, he tells me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cSitting with this wonderful tool and paper, and to have ink on my fingers, makes me happy,\u201d he continues, waving his pen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I feel like I\u2019ve dodged a bullet \u2013 not bad given the master writer must have killed literally hundreds of people over the years (thankfully all fictionally\u2026 as far as we know). Having just turned 70, fans will be delighted to hear the ideas \u201cjust keep pouring in\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Indeed, over 47 years and more than 60 books he\u2019s moved with swanlike grace between genres, platforms and projects; one minute tuning in a TV script (like last year\u2019s brilliantly-titled Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue); the next an Alex Rider adventure for younger readers; a brace of James Bond<\/a> and Sherlock Holmes reboots; or one of his two current adult murder-mystery strands \u2013 Susan Ryeland and Hawthorne and Horowitz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Read more:<\/strong> Britpop, murder and mayhem and a trip to Mars \u2013 four brilliant new books to read <\/a><\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong> Lisa Jewell’s switch to crime fiction saved her writing career <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lesley Manville as Susan Ryeland and Tim McMullan as Atticus Pund in Anthony’s Magpie Murders (Image: BBC \/ Eleventh Hour Films \/ Nick Wall)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz is out now… and it’s typically brilliant (Image: Century)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n The latter, which we\u2019re here to talk about today, feature private investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his hapless sidekick \u2013 a fictional alter-ego of Anthony himself \u2013 and the sixth book, A Deadly Episode, was published on Thursday (April 23). The series has been getting increasingly humorous, its creator growing in confidence in the metafiction elements of the story within a story, and the latest book sees a feature film being made of the first book in the series, The Word is Murder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe production company is fairly hopeless, the director is pretentious, they’ve run out of money and they’re way over budget,\u201d chuckles Anthony. \u201cThe screenwriter, who is not me, doesn’t like detective stories and wants to impose an eco-message on the material. The two stars hate each other, and then there’s a murder on set.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fortunately, Hawthorne and Horowitz are perfectly placed to investigate. It\u2019s typically brilliant, sending up both publishing and filmmaking as well as Anthony himself. \u201cIf you put me into a real life police investigation, I don’t think I’d be good at it,\u201d he smiles. \u201cI don’t normally guess the endings in other people’s books or in TV shows. I can be easily fooled. I’m good at inventing crime \u2013 just not solving it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But will anyone else spot themselves, I wonder? After all, Anthony\u2019s wife Jill Green, with whom he lives in southwest London, is a celebrated TV producer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Anthony and his TV producer wife Jill Green in Cannes… she features in his next book, he reveals (Image: Getty)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n \u201cNo,\u201d he insists. \u201cI\u2019ve never once used any of my books to score points. There are elements of people I\u2019ve met in my TV and film career but no one will recognise themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n However, the next book \u2013 the as-yet-untitled seventh which currently exists only in the pages of the writing pad in front of us \u2013 will feature a whole chapter dedicated to his wife \u2013 thus far a largely unseen presence in the series. \u201cI\u2019m laughing to myself thinking about it,\u201d he admits, perhaps a tad bravely. It\u2019s all great fun, but it would be a mistake to view it as cosy crime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMy books are about something beyond murder, they’re about the nature of crime and the nature of crime fiction and why murder is entertainment,\u201d he insists. \u201cBut murder is still murder \u2013 even if it takes place in a beautiful English village \u2013 so I\u2019ve always reacted against the \u2018cosy\u2019 description. When I begin a book, it’s always a case that somebody must be pretty upset, angry or frightened to want to kill.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Vicky McClure in hit adaptation of Anthony’s young adult Alex Rider adventures (Image: Rekha Garton \/ Eleventh Hour Films \/ Sony Pictures Television)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n With the latest TV adaptation of his Susan Ryeland novels due in the autumn, starring Lesley Manville, it\u2019s easy to suppose it\u2019s business as usual for the creator of Foyle\u2019s War and Midsomer Murders. In fact, Anthony admits British TV production is struggling despite, generally, it being a golden age for the genre.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou’ve got Netflix<\/a>, Amazon and Disney and they’re pouring all their resources into shows that are changing the landscape of television,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo those old-fashioned detective shows like Midsomer Murders now feel a little bit antiquated. And if you’re in line to make TV, you’re standing behind some very powerful figures \u2013 all the major directors, all the major Hollywood<\/a> stars have moved from films to television.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He\u2019s certainly not complaining \u2013 and singles out current favorites Pluribus and The Pitt as \u201cstellar\u201d TV \u2013 but admits: \u201cInstead of being what I was, a big fish in a small pool, I’m now a relatively small fish in a gigantic pool. I remain optimistic, but things will change because young people are getting their pleasures elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What Anthony, who always leaves the solution to his books in an envelope while writing in case he gets \u201chit by a bus\u201d before he finishes the book, is fuming at is the government\u2019s failure to protect young people from smartphones \u2013 ministers have pushed back yet again against cross-party Lords proposals to ban under-16s from social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Anthony is one of the star guests at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in July (Image: HIF)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s almost incomprehensible when the evidence is piled high that they are causing grief and anxiety in young people and damaging reading and communication skills and their ability to socialise,\u201d he sighs. \u201cOf course, social media is here to stay but we need to protect children from algorithms designed to lead to dependency.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ministers, he says, seem happy to sit around and \u201cwait for the worst\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On a brighter note, he\u2019s looking forward to appearing as a star guest at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival<\/a> in Harrogate in July. \u201cIt\u2019s the premier crime festival in the country and it’s also a beautiful town,\u201d he adds. \u201cAnd by coincidence, one of the characters in my next book lives in Harrogate, so I can do some research while I’m there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s Anthony Horowitz for you\u2026 always writing!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/39\/1200x712\/secondary\/Ant-6882298.jpg?r=1777030313990\" "\\"Anthony")
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