美国国家公共电台 NPR What Makes A Good Whodunit? 'Magpie Murders' Author Spells It Out

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

"Magpie¹ Murders" it's a whodunit² about whodunits. It's the new book by Anthony Horowitz, his latest foray into fictional³ crime solving. He knows the genre⁴ well. He's written two "Sherlock Holmes" novels with the blessing⁵ of the Conan Doyle estate. He also created two popular BBC mystery shows, "Midsomer Murders" and "Foyle's War." NPR's Lynn Neary talks with Horowitz about the elements that make a mystery so satisfying.

LYNN NEARY, BYLINE⁶: Murder - that's where it all starts. Everyone is fascinated by murder, says Horowitz. Take "Foyle's War," for example. The series is set in Britain during World War II, but Horowitz says that wasn't its selling point.

ANTHONY HOROWITZ: If I had gone to the BBC and said I wanted to write about, I don't know, the social history of 1940 to '47, they would have probably said no. When I said I've got a whole series of terrific murders which take place in that time, they opened the door.

NEARY: Murder is a fast way to get to know someone, says Horowitz - their secrets, their habits, their enemies, their friends. It takes a smart detective to sort through all the pieces of the puzzle and put them in the right place because of course in a good whodunit, the murder is always solved.

HOROWITZ: A whodunit is one of the few types of fiction that dot every I and cross every T, for all fiction is in a way a search for truth. Whodunits gives you truth. The final chapter always nails it, closes it down. And you come away with a sense of satisfaction which I don't think you get in any other sort of book.

NEARY: When Horowitz was a teenager, he hitchhiked around the world and read all of Agatha Christie's novels along the way. His other BBC show, "Midsomer Murders," is a series of classic whodunits featuring the very clever Chief Inspector⁷ Barnaby.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MIDSOMER MURDERS")

JOHN NETTLES⁸: (As DCI Tom Barnaby) Michael Lacey - why did he run all that way back to Tye House to call the ambulance when the accident happened on the other side of the village? Why didn't he call the ambulance from there? And why that day of all days did Phyllis Cadell decide to shoot?

NEARY: It was during the first season of "Midsomer Murders" some 20 years ago that Horowitz got the idea for "Magpie Murders." It took him a long time to finally write the book because it was complicated, and he wasn't sure he could pull it off.

HOROWITZ: I wanted it to be more than just a murder mystery story. I wanted it to be a little bit - a sort of a treatise⁹ on the whole genre of murder mystery writing - how the writers come up with the ideas, how these books are formed. That was my interest in writing it. I didn't just want people to have the fun or the pleasure of, oh, it was the doctor, it was the dentist on the final page. I wanted there to be something a little bit more.

NEARY: It's clear from the very first page that something different is afoot in this mystery. It opens on a rainy day in London as an editor at a small publishing company is settling in to read a book called "Magpie Murders." It's the latest whodunit by her best-selling author who created the popular detective Atticus Pund.

HOROWITZ: Atticus Pund had not been in the village very long, but in a strange way, he felt he'd come to know it intimately - the church, the castle, the antique shop in the square, the bus shelter, Dingle Dell and of course Pye Hall. They had always related to each other in various ways, but over the past week, they had become fixed¹⁰ points in a landscape of crime.

NEARY: Naturally this story unfolds in a quaint¹¹ English village. A good mystery, says Horowitz, needs a small, contained setting filled with people living in close quarters.

HOROWITZ: The truth is, is that English villages are very peculiar¹² places. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody has something bad to say about everybody else. And everybody has secrets. You get the sense that behind those net curtains, everybody is up to something they'd rather you didn't know. And so it's a - sort of a cauldron. It's a microcosm, and it is the perfect environment for something unpleasant - a murder, for example - to take place.

NEARY: Of course there is a major plot twist in the "Magpie Murders." Suffice to say the editor turns sleuth when she discovers a chapter is missing. Not surprisingly, her search for the missing pages leads to another tale of murder and mayhem also set in a quaint English village. Horowitz manages to dot the i's and cross the t's of both plots, and he says if he's really done the job right, you won't be able to figure out who the murderers are.

HOROWITZ: It has to have that big smile that comes with the surprise, oh, it was him, or, oh, it was her; I should have seen that. And if you can manage that, if you can pull it off, then I think you've written a successful whodunit.

NEARY: So whodunit? I'll never tell. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE SHACKS SONG, "ORCHIDS")

1 magpie   

n.喜欢收藏物品的人，喜鹊，饶舌者

参考例句：

• Now and then a magpie would call.不时有喜鹊的叫声。
• This young man is really a magpie.这个年轻人真是饶舌。

2 whodunit   

n.侦探小说（或剧本、影片等）

参考例句：

• It is not the most promising script for a whodunit.这并不是最有市场前景的侦探小说剧本。
• I always like the series "Whodunit" by Wei Sili.我一直很喜欢卫斯理系列的推理小说。

3 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

4 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

5 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 inspector   

n.检查员，监察员，视察员

参考例句：

• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
• The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。

8 nettles   

n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I tingle where I sat in the nettles. 我坐过在荨麻上的那个部位觉得刺痛。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard. 那蔓草丛生的凄凉地方是教堂公墓。 来自辞典例句

9 treatise   

n.专著；(专题)论文

参考例句：

• The doctor wrote a treatise on alcoholism.那位医生写了一篇关于酗酒问题的论文。
• This is not a treatise on statistical theory.这不是一篇有关统计理论的论文。

10 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

11 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

12 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。