Anthony Horowitz in conversation about his career and breaking out into adult writing

If Anthony Horowitz had his way, this feature would be threaded with hidden messages and coded allusions to people and publishers you know. For Horowitz is a trickster, a playful wordsmith with not one but two books out this year. Or has he? Actually it is three, he corrects me: his £1 Alex Rider Undercover has already been published ahead of World Book Day.

Second up, then, is a new Alex Rider, Nightshade, published by Walker in April. It is 12th in the children’s series and comes 20 years after Stormbreaker, which introduced us to the 14-year-old boy turned MI6 recruit (for those who don’t know, the book has Alex thwarting a plan to release a deadly virus in the UK). Stormbreaker remains Horowitz’s all-time UK bestseller, and Walker will mark the 20th year with a series of promotions, including an anniversary edition of that first book.

His next adult title, Moonflower Murders, arrives in August from publisher Century (Cornerstone). It is a follow-up to the Orion-published Magpie Murders, which centred on book editor Susan Ryeland, author Alan Conway and his 1950s detective Atticus Pünd. (Horowitz is writing a second series for Cornerstone, featuring detective Daniel Hawthorne and the author himself.)

It’s a blessing and a curse. I love the fact that if you come to one of my talks it’s always so lively

If that wasn’t enough, an Alex Rider TV series (produced by Eleventh Hour Films and Sony Pictures Television) should début this year; an adaption of Magpie Murders is in the works (Horowitz is developing the scripts); there is talk of another Bond (he has written the past two Ian Fleming continuation novels, and earlier resurrected Sherlock Holmes); and he is writing a 10-part murder mystery for the short-form video platform Quibi. The obvious question then, when we meet pre-coronavirus, is how does he keep up? “I’m difficult to pin down,” he admits. “It’s a blessing and a curse. I love the fact that if you come to one of my talks it’s always so lively. There are fans of ‘Foyle’s War’ [the TV series he created], and children who will sit through an hour to ask one question on Alex Rider.”

The writing is actually less complicated than you might think, he says, since he compartmentalises, with a work ethic that sees him putting in 10-hour days. He recently dropped his habit of buying a new fountain pen for each new project: “I liked a pen that personified each book. But I’ve got too many now.” For his first draft he does not write differently for children, but will use later iterations to revise the language or moderate the tone.

Forty-plus

Horowitz is indeed prodigious. In a 40-year career he has written more than 40 books, including The Diamond Brothers and Power of Five series for children, the Bond books and Arthur Conan Doyle titles, and a number of TV scripts, including for “Midsomer Murders” and “Foyle’s War”. He is on record as saying how books rescued him from an unhappy childhood. Needless to say, he is now an enthusiast for the craft of writing. “I love what I do. I’m only really happy when I’m writing.”

It was, though, Alex and Harry who combined to make him as a book author. “I wrote 10 books before Stormbreaker, but they weren’t by modern terms successful. It seemed that the audience was eluding me.” But then J K Rowling came along with her game-changer. “Before those books made the money they made, there weren’t dedicated [kids’] sections in bookshops, newspapers did not have children’s reviewers, and if I was asked what I did for a living, I’d be reluctant to say a writer because of the conversations that always followed. I’d certainly never say I was a children’s writer. Suddenly, thanks to Rowling, it became the thing to be. Cool.”

The idea of a younger James Bond had “sat in his head” for about four years, before he felt the moment was right. “Walker offered me a new contract, and the fourth book was Alex Rider. Success in publishing and writing is about timing; Stormbreaker was the right book at the right time.”

In 2011, having published one adult book, 2004’s The Killing Joke, he returned to older readers with the publication of the first of his Conan Doyle continuation novels, and this older audience is the priority for now. “Moonflower Murders is the most important book of my career. It’s not been an easy thing to do, break through as an adult author. It is difficult. I don’t know why, and this one has got to do it. Alex is bigger than me, but Susan Ryeland isn’t.”

I ignore anything to do with bestseller charts or awards, or anything to do with Nielsen. I just don’t want to know

Like Magpie Murders, the new book is a book within a book, with editor Ryeland learning that the clues to a murder in the “Moonflower” hotel are contained in a book written by her deceased author Conway, who had once visited the scene of the crime. It is classic Horowitz, twisty and playful, with a nod to Agatha Christie, and added spice for publishers. Ryeland is partly modelled on his former editor at Orion, Susan Lamb—Ryeland is one of the oldest English sheep breeds, of course—while the plot turns on a logistics breakdown at the Hely Hutchinson Centre. “I like to have fun with the people I work with. So Susan and Selina [Walker, his editor at Century] are both hidden in the book, and there are other secrets I’ve put in just for people mad enough to want to look.” It is an old habit. “When I started out, I had to write a novelisation of the ‘Robin of Sherwood’ television show, and I hid the entire cast and all the main technical people within, either as anagrams or just using secret clues. It actually kept me sane, because writing novelisations is not my idea of a fun time.” Most of the Orion people turn up in his first Sherlock Holmes novel, House of Silk, he adds.

His exit from Orion to Penguin Random House division Cornerstone for the Hawthorne books, while amicable, was notable, coinciding as it did with the loss of a number of leading writers—including Kate Mosse and Harlan Coben—during a time of great change for the publisher. With the departure of key staff, such as Lamb, Horowitz says, “they sort of left me”. He is happy now, but with two lead titles being published by two different publishers just five months apart, he admits that it can be a bit of a juggle: “You never want to be with more than one publisher—it just causes grief,” he jokes. “I have wonderful relationships with both my publishers [he has been edited by Jane Winterbotham at Walker for 20 years], but it does cause conflicts. Who is this interview for, for example?”

For someone so steeped in the industry—he has spoken out about literacy, age banding and, perhaps by accident, cultural appropriation—he is cautious about following events too closely. “I ignore anything to do with bestseller charts or awards, or anything to do with Nielsen. I just don’t want to know. The moment you begin to worry about it, it will lead you to despair. Is your career headed downhill? I just need to live the adventure in the book. You need to be in the book, not sitting on the hill looking down on it. Be in the valley.”

Unfortunately, though, there is nothing remotely amusing about coronavirus, and as I sit here in self-isolation, I can’t see that I’ll ever incorporate it into one of my stories

Given the coronavirus outbreak, a lot of authors (particularly those with books in the pipeline) will be heading to those hills, wondering what the industry will look like once the crisis dissipates. In an email exchange this week, I asked Horowitz how he was responding. “It feels so strange to be sitting in the middle of what could be an Alex Rider plot… in fact the very first book, Stormbreaker, had the villain releasing a deadly virus across the UK. Unfortunately, though, there is nothing remotely amusing about coronavirus, and as I sit here in self-isolation, I can’t see that I’ll ever incorporate it into one of my stories.