Anthony John HorowitzCBE (born 5 April 1955) is an English novelist and screenwriter specialising in mystery and suspense. His works for children and young adult readers include the Alex Rider series featuring a 14-year-old British boy who spies for MI6, The Power of Five series (known as The Gatekeepers in the USA), and The Diamond Brothers series.
Horowitz's works for adults include: the play Mindgame (2001); two Sherlock Holmes novels, The House of Silk (2011) and Moriarty (2014); two novels featuring his own detective Susan Ryeland, Magpie Murders (2016) and Moonflower Murders (2020); five novels featuring a fictionalised version of himself as a companion and chronicler to private investigator Daniel Hawthorne: The Word Is Murder (2017), The Sentence Is Death (2018), A Line to Kill (2021), The Twist of a Knife (2022), and Close to Death (2024).
The estate of James Bond creator Ian Fleming chose Horowitz to write Bond novels utilising unpublished material by Fleming, starting with Trigger Mortis in 2015, followed by Forever and a Day in 2018, and a third and final novel With a Mind to Kill in May 2022.
Horowitz was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, into a Jewish family, and in his early years lived an upper middle class lifestyle.[2][3][4] As a child, Horowitz used to go to Instow, where his nanny took him boating on the River Torridge. He also had a stuffed monkey named Benjamin (which was later eaten by his dog).[5]
Horowitz attended Orley Farm School. He started writing at the age of eight or nine and he instantly knew he would be a professional writer. This was because he was an underachiever in school and was not physically fit, and found his escape in books and telling stories. In a 2006 interview, Horowitz stated "I was quite certain, from my earliest memory, that I would be a professional writer and nothing but."[6]
Horowitz's mother introduced him to Frankenstein and Dracula. She gave him a human skull for his 13th birthday. Horowitz said in an interview that it reminds him to get to the end of each story since he will soon look like the skull.[9]
Horowitz's father was associated with some of the politicians in the "circle" of prime minister Harold Wilson, including Eric Miller.[10] Facing bankruptcy, he moved his assets into Swiss numbered bank accounts. He died from cancer when Horowitz was 22, and the family was never able to track down the missing money despite years of trying.[4] This left the family bankrupt, requiring the sale of the large family home.[11]
Literary career
Early literary work (1979–1991)
Anthony Horowitz's first book, The Sinister Secret of Frederick K Bower, was a humorous adventure for children that was published in 1979[12] and later reissued as Enter Frederick K Bower in 1985. In 1981 his second novel, Misha, the Magician and the Mysterious Amulet was published and he moved to Paris to write his third book.[13]
In 1983, the first novel in the Pentagram series was released. Entitled The Devil's Door-Bell, the story saw thirteen-year-old Martin Hopkins trying to adjust to a new life with a foster mother on a Yorkshire farm, but it quickly becomes a nightmare when he ends up having to battle an ancient evil that threatens the whole world. Only three of the four remaining novels in the series were ever released: The Night of the Scorpion (1984), The Silver Citadel (1986) and Day of the Dragon (1986).
In 1985, he released Myths and Legends, a collection of retold tales from around the world. He was also involved in writing scripts for the cult 1980s television series Robin of Sherwood and the spin-off novel.
The most important release of Horowitz's early career was The Falcon's Malteser (1986). This book was the first in the successful Diamond Brothers series, and was followed in 1987 by Public Enemy Number Two, and by South by South East in 1991.
Early children's fiction success (1992–1999)
Horowitz wrote many stand-alone novels in the 1990s. His 1994 novel Granny, a comedy thriller about an evil grandmother, was Horowitz's first book in three years, and it was the first of three books for an audience similar to that of Groosham Grange. The second of these was The Switch, a body swap story, first published in 1996. The third was 1997's The Devil and His Boy, which is set in the Elizabethan era and explores the rumour of Elizabeth I's secret son.
In 1999, The Unholy Grail was published as a sequel to Groosham Grange. It was later renamed Return to Groosham Grange in 2003, possibly to help young readers understand the connection between the two books. In 2021, Horowitz revealed to a fan on Twitter that he had plans to write a third book, but was dissuaded after the success of the Harry Potter series.[16] In the same year, Horowitz publishing a collection of several short horror stories aimed for children and young adults, entitled Horowitz Horror (1999). This was an opportunity for Horowitz to further explore a darker side of his writing.
Some time before the new millennium, Horowitz attempted to reach out to an adult audience with a novel called Poisoned Pen. The novel is based around Martin Holland, who is a childhood friend of a 21st century incarnation of William Shakespeare. In the novel, William Shakespeare is reimagined as a Hollywood screenwriter who is murdered in a set of circumstances that Martin Holland finds rather odd, despite attempts from a Los Angeles detective to dissuade him. The novel follows Martin's attempts to solve the ever-growing mystery through a series of rather unusual circumstances and a number of people who seem rather glad that Shakespeare was murdered. The novel has never been published in the UK or even in English, but copies in Spanish and Dutch have been released (retitled as El asesinato de Shakespeare and William S. respectively).[17] As of June 2021, despite Horowitz's recent successes in adult literature, there are no plans to get the novel republished.
Mainstream children's fiction success (2000–2010)
Horowitz began his most famous and successful series in the new millennium with the Alex Rider novels. These books are about a 14-year-old boy becoming a spy, a member of the British Secret Service branch MI6. As of 2024, there are eleven books where Alex Rider is the protagonist, and another connected to the Alex Rider series: Stormbreaker (2000), Point Blanc (2001), Skeleton Key (2002), Eagle Strike (2003), Scorpia (2004) Ark Angel (2005), Snakehead (2007), Crocodile Tears (2009), Scorpia Rising (2011), plus Russian Roulette (2013).[18] Horowitz had stated that Scorpia Rising was to be the last book in the Alex Rider series prior to writing Russian Roulette about the life of Yassen Gregorovich,[19] but he has returned to the series with Never Say Die (2017), Nightshade (2020) and Nightshade Revenge (2023).
In 2003, Horowitz also wrote three novellas featuring the Diamond Brothers: The Blurred Man, The French Confection and I Know What You Did Last Wednesday, which were republished together as Three of Diamonds in 2004. The author information page in early editions of Scorpia and the introduction to Three of Diamonds claimed that Horowitz had travelled to Australia to research a new Diamond Brothers book, entitled Radius of the Lost Shark. This claim was further backed up when a new Diamond Brothers novella entitled The Greek who Stole Christmas! was released in 2007, where it is hinted at the end that Radius of the Lost Shark may turn out to be the eighth entry in the series.[20] However, the next novel in the series was instead called Where Seagulls Dare, and is unrelated to the Australian-based adventure that was previously announced. Horowitz published the first six chapters unedited on his website throughout 2020, and the full, edited novel was published in 2022, with all profits going to support the NHS.[21]
Horowitz also published two sequels to his short horror story collection; More Horowitz Horror (2000) and More Bloody Horowitz (2009). Many of the stories in Horowitz Horror and More Horowitz Horror were later repackaged in twos or threes as the Pocket Horowitz series, while More Bloody Horowitz was later reissued as Scared to Death. One of the short stories in More Bloody Horowitz is notable for serving as Horowitz's opportunity to get even with fellow author Darren O'Shaughnessy, more commonly known as Darren Shan. In 2008, the pair had gotten into a joke dispute over O'Shaughnessy's use of Horowitz's name for an objectionable character (Antoine Horwitzer) in Wolf Island.[22] In retaliation, Horowitz chose to plot a gruesome literary revenge in the short story The Man Who Killed Darren Shan.[23]
In 2004, Horowitz again attempted to branch out to an adult audience with The Killing Joke, a comedy about a man who tries to track a joke to its source with disastrous consequences. The book was not very successful, and in August 2005, Horowitz returned to young adult fiction by releasing a book called Raven's Gate which began a second successful series entitled The Power of Five (The Gatekeepers in the United States). Based heavily on one of his earlier novels entitled The Devil's Door-Bell, each of the first four entries of The Power of Five subsequently ended up being a rewritten and expanded version of their respective counterpart from the Pentagram series. The second book in the series, Evil Star (based on The Night of the Scorpion), was released in April 2006. The third in the series is called Nightrise (based on The Silver Citadel), and was released on 2 April 2007. The fourth book Necropolis (based on Day of the Dragon) was released in October 2008. The fifth and final book, the only one not based on an earlier Pentagram novel, was released in October 2012 and is called Oblivion. Horowitz describes this series as "Alex Rider with devils and witches".[24]
In October 2008, Anthony Horowitz's play Mindgame opened Off Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse in New York City.[25]Mindgame starred Keith Carradine, Lee Godart, and Kathleen McNenny. The production was the New York stage directorial debut for Ken Russell.
On 19 January 2011, the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle announced that Horowitz was to be the writer of a new Sherlock Holmes novel, the first such effort to receive an official endorsement from them and to be entitled The House of Silk. It was both published,[27][28] in November of 2011 and broadcast on BBC Radio 4.[29] A follow-up novel, Moriarty, was published in 2014.
In October 2014, the estate of Ian Fleming commissioned Horowitz to write a James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, which was released in 2015. It was followed by a second novel, Forever[30]and A Day, which came out on 31 May 2018.[31] A third novel entitled With a Mind to Kill was released on 17 May 2022.[32] Horowitz is the only author in recent years to have been invited by Ian Fleming Publications to write successive, official James Bond novels.
In 2016, Horowitz's adult novel Magpie Murders was published. Having previously spoken about the book in 2005, it was initially described as being about "a whodunit writer who is murdered while he's writing his latest whodunit".[33] Horowitz finally finished it in late 2015,[34] and it was published in October 2016.[35] A follow-up novel, Moonflower Murders, was released in 2020. A third and final novel in the series is expected to be released as well, with Horowitz expressing hope that he'll start writing it sometime in 2023.[36]
In 2017, Horowitz began a new series of detective novels which includes himself as a novelist enlisted by an out-of-work detective called Hawthorne to write books about the way Hawthorne solves crimes. The fictional Horowitz accompanies Hawthorne as he investigates murders committed in London and other locations. So far, starting with The Word is Murder, five of these books have appeared, with three others commissioned.
In 2011, Horowitz tweeted that he had plans to write a new trilogy for the same demographic as his Alex Rider and Power of Five books, but that it's still "a secret".[37] During 2012 and 2013, Horowitz tweeted out some more information regarding the series, where he stated that it will be "a completely new genre" from anything else he'd done so far,[38] and that it will have a contemporary setting in modern-day London with a 15-year-old protagonist. He also revealed that it's tentatively entitled The Machine.[39] However, Horowitz revealed in 2021 that he has yet to begin writing this series and that he has no immediate plans to do so.[40]
Horowitz is the writer of a feature film screenplay, The Gathering, which was released in 2003 and starred Christina Ricci.
He wrote the screenplay for Alex Rider's first major motion picture, Stormbreaker.
Television
Horowitz began writing for television in the 1980s, contributing to the children's anthology series Dramarama, and also writing five episodes of the third season for the popular fantasy series Robin of Sherwood. He also novelised three of Carpenter's episodes as a children's book under the title Robin of Sherwood: The Hooded Man (1986).
In addition, he created Crossbow (1987), a half-hour action adventure series loosely based on William Tell. This era in Horowitz's career also saw the release of Adventurer (1987), a thriller about a convict stuck on a prisoner ship with his sworn enemy based on the Richard Carpenter series, and Starting Out (1990), a collection of screenplays by the author himself, published.
His association with murder mysteries began with the adaptation of several Hercule Poirot stories for ITV's popular Agatha Christie's Poirot series during the 1990s. Often his work has a comic edge, such as with the comic murder anthology Murder Most Horrid (BBC Two, 1991) and the comedy-drama The Last Englishman (1995), starring Jim Broadbent.
In 1991, The Diamond Brothers, a six-part television series written and directed by Horowitz himself, was broadcast on ITV. The series is based on the book South by South East, which Horowitz claimed he wrote after he had written the television series, effectively making South by South East a novelisation of the television series rather than the novel acting as the primary source of inspiration. Both McLinden and Dale reprised their respective film roles, which makes the television series act as a sequel to Just Ask for Diamond.
From 1997, he wrote the majority of the episodes in the early series of Midsomer Murders. In 2001, he created a drama anthology series of his own for the BBC, Murder in Mind, an occasional series which deals with a different set of characters and a different murder every one-hour episode.
He also created two short-lived science-fiction shows, Crime Traveller (1997) for BBC One and The Vanishing Man (pilot 1996, series 1998) for ITV. While Crime Traveller received favourable viewing figures it was not renewed for a second season, which Horowitz accounts to temporary personnel transitioning within the BBC.
In 2002, Horowitz created the series Foyle's War, a historically-themed detective series set during and after the Second World War. The series became the longest-running among Horowitz's television projects, with a total of 28 episodes broadcast over eight series between 2002 and 2015.
Horowitz adapted his novel Magpie Murders into a television miniseries, which aired on BritBox and later BBC One in the UK and on the PBS series Masterpiece Mystery! in the US.[41]
Horowitz lives in Central London (Clerkenwell) with his wife Jill Green;[11] they eloped to be married in Hong Kong on 15 April 1988.[43] Green produced Foyle's War, the series Horowitz wrote for ITV, and other television shows he has written.[44] They have two sons.
Horowitz credits his family with much of his success in writing, as he says they help him with ideas and research. He is a patron of family support charity Home-Start in Suffolk and child protection charity Kidscape.[45]
Politically, Horowitz has described himself to be "vaguely conservative".[46] Ahead of the 2010 United Kingdom general election, Horowitz stated he would vote for the Conservative Party in response to the policies of the governing Labour Party, but "with little enthusiasm."[47] In 2017, Horowitz expressed criticism of the notion of cultural appropriation after a publisher had allegedly tried to dissuade him from creating a black character as a central figure in one of his novels, and supported fellow author Lionel Shriver's critiques on the same issue. He also criticised the social phenomenon of cancel culture and "mobbing" of figures for expressing diverse opinions, stating, "There is a rigidity in the way we have begun to think and speak. If we step outside certain lines on certain issues, we find not just people disagreeing, but disagreeing to the extent of death threats. When somebody says something untoward in the press, and I am not saying this about myself, people don't just say that was a stupid thing to say. They say, Lose your job. They want you to never ever have an income again."[11][48]
Performed as part of the National Theatre Connections festival
2015
Dinner with Saddam
Playwright
Related Research Articles
Alex Rider is a series of spy novels by the English author Anthony Horowitz. The novels revolve around a teenaged spy named Alex Rider and are primarily aimed towards young adults. The series currently comprises 14 novels, as well as seven graphic novels, seven short stories, and a supplementary book.
Geoffrey Sax is a British film and television director, who has worked on a variety of drama productions in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Alexander Richard Pettyfer is an English actor and model. He appeared in school plays and on television before being cast as Alex Rider, the main character in the 2006 film version of Stormbreaker. Pettyfer was nominated for a Young Artist Award and an Empire Award for his role.
Stormbreaker is a young adult action-adventure book written by British author Anthony Horowitz, and is the first novel in the Alex Rider series. The book was released in the United Kingdom on 4 September 2000, and in United States release on 21 May 2001, where it became a New York Times Bestseller. Since its release, the book has sold more than nine million copies worldwide, been listed on the BBC's The Big Read, and in 2005 received a California Young Reader Medal.
Stormbreaker is a 2006 action spy film directed by Geoffrey Sax. The screenplay by Anthony Horowitz is based on his 2000 novel Stormbreaker, the first novel in the Alex Rider series. The film stars Alex Pettyfer as Alex Rider, and also stars Mickey Rourke, Bill Nighy, Sophie Okonedo, Alicia Silverstone, Sarah Bolger, Stephen Fry and Ewan McGregor. Stormbreaker was an international co-production between companies and financiers from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany.
Raven's Gate is the first book in The Power of Five series, written by Anthony Horowitz. It was published and released in the United Kingdom on 1 August 2005, by Walker Books Ltd and in the United States by Scholastic Press under the adjusted series title The Gatekeepers. It is followed by Evil Star, released in 2006, Nightrise in 2007, and Necropolis in 2008, with the final book Oblivion in 2012.
Point Blanc is the second book in the Alex Rider series, written by British author Anthony Horowitz. The book was released in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2001 and in North America on April 15, 2002, under the alternate title Point Blank.
The Diamond Brothers is a series of humorous children's detective books by Anthony Horowitz, recounting the adventures of the world's worst private detective, Tim Diamond, and his much more intelligent younger brother, Nick Diamond.
Alexander "Alex" Rider is a title character and the protagonist of the Alex Rider novel series by British author Anthony Horowitz. He has also been featured in three short stories written by Horowitz based in the same canon as the series; Secret Weapon, Christmas at Gunpoint and Incident in Nice.
Guy Burt is an English author and BAFTA award-winning screenwriter who has worked on series such as The Borgias, and Wire in the Blood and is currently working on adapting the Alex Rider TV series.
The House of Silk is a Sherlock Holmes novel written by British author Anthony Horowitz, published in 2011. This book's publication was the first time the Conan Doyle Estate had authorised a new novel that is not a Sherlock Holmes pastiche.
Trigger Mortis is a 2015 James Bond novel written by Anthony Horowitz, and commissioned by the estate of Bond's creator Ian Fleming, which was published on 8 September 2015.
Alex Rider is a British spy thriller television series based on the novel series of the same name by Anthony Horowitz. Adapted by Guy Burt, it stars Otto Farrant as the eponymous character, who is recruited by a subdivision of MI6 as a teenage spy to undertake espionage missions. The series is Amazon's first scripted British Amazon Original series. The show is jointly produced by Eleventh Hour Films and Sony Pictures Television, and is the second screen adaptation of the novels, following the 2006 feature film version of the first novel, Stormbreaker.
Alex Rider is a young adult spy novel series by Anthony Horowitz.
Otto Farrant is an English actor. He is best known for his portrayal of the titular character in Amazon Prime's spy thriller series Alex Rider (2020–2024). He previously had supporting television roles in The White Queen (2013), War & Peace (2016) and Mrs. Wilson (2018). As a theatre actor, he has performed at venues such as the Royal National Theatre and the Young Vic.
Magpie Murders is a 2016 mystery novel by British author Anthony Horowitz and the first novel in the Susan Ryeland series. The story focuses on the murder of a mystery author and uses a story within a story format.
Moonflower Murders is a 2020 mystery novel by British author Anthony Horowitz and the second novel in the Susan Ryeland series. The story focuses on the disappearance of a hotel employee and uses a story within a story format.
Groosham Grange is a 1988 fantasy novel by English author Anthony Horowitz and the first novel in the Groosham Grange series. It follows the adventures of twelve-year-old David Eliot, who gets sent to a mysterious school called Groosham Grange where he eventually learns he is the seventh son of a seventh son. Aimed at a similar audience to that of Horowitz's The Diamond Brothers series, it was partially based on the years Horowitz himself spent at his boarding school and his own unhappy childhood. This book went on to win the 1989 Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award. and later the French Prix Européen du Roman Pour Enfants in 1993.
The Sentence Is Death is a 2019 mystery novel by British author Anthony Horowitz and the second novel in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series. The story focuses on solving the murder of a teetotaling solicitor who was murdered with an expensive bottle of wine.
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