A Book Within a Book Within a Miniseries with an Audiobook- A Review

 I have pretty limited TV access- just a basic cable package. I have enough things to distract me from my writing! One of my favorite stations is PBS. Normally I'm drawn to Nature, Nova, and American Experience, but I got sucked into the Masterpiece adaptation of the Anthony Horowitz novel, "Magpie Murders." I liked it so much that I listened to it as an audiobook.

It's a novel within a novel. A woman, Susan, is an editor for a British publishing company. Their bestselling author delivers his book, "Magpie Murders," to them and she takes it home to read over the weekend. The story is a classic "golden era" mystery (think Agatha Christie) and she's enjoying it greatly... until the last chapter is missing. Susan is personally annoyed by the missing chapter (I think we all get that) but also her company might well fail if they can't put the book out, so she decides to track it down.

But before she can get started, the author dies. Is it murder? Suicide? A tragic accident? So while she's trying to locate the missing chapter, Susan finds herself looking into the mystery of the author's death and all of his dark secrets. In the end, she finds both the missing chapter and how he died. Everything is tied together and it has a satisfying ending. I highly recommend it.

I liked the book better than the TV adaptation, but that's nearly always the case. The narrators of the audiobook (one for the missing novel and one for the other storyline) were both British, so it's all read with a beautiful accent which added to the vibe.  The TV adaptation was not as good as the book, but still worth watching.

But of course, there's more! Many years from now, I have plans to write a story or two in the style of the golden age of mysteries. I took copious notes and made observations on the techniques. I know I have plenty of writing to do on my current project, but I was sorely tempted to jump ahead. 

Then I noticed PBS has a whole series on Agatha Christie and... I guess I don't need many channels to be distracted!