'I could hire an assassin to kill a man'
Anthony Horowitz is sitting in his beautiful Clerkenwell flat, eating a chocolate digestive (his favourite food) and pondering one of life’s big questions.
‘I’m not sure I could kill a man, but I could certainly pay someone else to do it for me,’ he says through sips of tea. ‘One thinks of certain people in one’s life who are deserving of such things. My old Latin teacher would be the first on the list. I suppose Tony Blair might be on it, too. And Jimmy Savile, except he’s already dead!’
Just for the record, he is not always like this. In fact, Horowitz is effortless, charming company. But as a bestselling writer, with credits including Midsomer Murders, Foyle’s War, a Sherlock Homes sequel and the Alex Rider series, he doubtless has death on the mind more than most.
In fact, he has just completed his fast-paced and much anticipated Alex Rider prequel, Russian Roulette, and is now working 11-hour days in his home office, hidden away behind a secret door, to complete his second Sherlock Holmes novel and his latest series of Foyle’s War.
On top of his punishing work schedule, Horowitz has also had to contend with his own mortality. ‘It’s been a very choppy year, healthwise. My South African book tour got cancelled because of a disc in my neck. And now there’s a cyst on the back of my right eye and a smaller one in my left eye, which is damaging my central vision. Fortunately, they haven’t grown any bigger, but there is always the spectre of this getting worse and worse. I could even go blind in one eye.
‘It has been frightening. The first specialist I saw told me to stop writing. But I very quickly realised that writing is my life and to stop would be ridiculous,’ he adds. ‘So I went and got second and third and fourth opinions, and they said actually it has nothing to do with reading and writing. Nothing can be done about it, though. Fortunately, I have two eyes.
‘People say that once you pass the age of 50, all you’re doing is dodging ailments. I don’t think I’m particularly old yet at 57, but these things happen and it just makes me work harder. I do have a funny habit, though. I always leave notes for my assistant on how my books finish, so if I drop dead in the middle of one someone else can finish it. The solution to my new Sherlock Holmes book is so pleasing that if I died, my last thought wouldn’t be about my wife and my children but: ‘Who’s going to finish this book?’
Despite his success as a writer of adult novels and television drama, Horowitz is perhaps best known for his Alex Rider books, which have sold 16 million English language copies and appeal to a younger, teenage audience. But while Russian Roulette follows 14-year-old Rider’s exploits as he attempts to evade the sinister Russian assassin on his tail, Horowitz has strong views about how children are losing their freedom and sense of adventure, particularly in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile revelations.
‘The truth is that there hasn’t been a huge rise in paedophile or child murder offences, but the media makes such a big noise when anything does happen that there’s now the sense that no child is ever safe.
‘For many children now, there’s no possibility of disappearing into the woods, hiding and building tree houses. Increasingly, children are stuck indoors, with computer games.
‘We no longer want children to walk home by themselves at night, but I think a lot of the concern is misplaced. Children just need to be more educated about the possible dangers.
‘Our children are an unfortunate generation in many ways. There are also all the health and safety issues. If a child falls over and bangs his or her knee, the immediate instinct is to contact the nearest lawyer and try and sue. At least they can still have adventures in books.
‘When my children were younger, we had a house in Suffolk, and they would run around having adventures and escapes and japes, while my wife, Jill, and I were reading the papers in bed. And we often used to think: “If anything bad were to happen, we would be on the front page of every paper, as negligent parents.” But I don’t regret it. I think that it was great that my children had that wonderful opportunity to have adventures and use their imaginations. If society can’t sustain that any more, what has it become?’
Times have certainly changed since Horowitz was a young boy. It is common knowledge that he disliked his first boarding school, calling it a ‘brutal experience’, but he also makes some rather more uncomfortable revelations. ‘Half the people who taught me were quite sinister in some ways at my first school, in North London, and a few of them might even have been predators. It’s funny, but that’s my experience of school back then. It was sort of tolerated. Even their nicknames hinted at it, and the school didn’t seem to pick up on it.
‘I had a teacher who was always leaning over and pressing into you while you were working. Everybody knew this about this teacher and everybody dreaded it, and of course nowadays you’d be locked up for it. But back then you accepted it. But then we also accepted corporal punishment and all sorts of other abuses when I was a boy.
‘Anything that makes a child safer should be applauded, but similarly, anything that makes children permanently feel afraid is worrying.
‘We’re moving into a world in which an adult cannot be left on their own with a child. It’s unfortunate that this huge mistrust now exists between adults and children. Part of it was down to Labour introducing Criminal Record Bureau checks, which automatically assume that anybody who would be alone with children must have devious motives – it did terrible damage to volunteering, which has decreased catastrophically since then.
‘As a writer myself, I am terribly careful. Children often knock on my door, but I would never let a child across the threshold. It’s just too risky in this day and age.’
But Horowitz is passionate about offering children an escape through the written word. And with Russian Roulette he has succeeded. His adult readers, however, may be more interested in news of his second Sherlock Holmes novel, a followup to his successful first 2011 outing with the Baker Street sleuth, The House Of Silk. It is scheduled for publication next year.
‘It’s set immediately after the Reichenbach Falls, so it begins with Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty both dead,’ he reveals. ‘A private detective arrives from Pinkerton in America to investigate Moriarty’s last crime, and discovers on Moriarty’s body a letter, concealed in one of his pockets. Using this, he begins to crack the last crime, helped by a police inspector who had previously assisted Holmes.
‘That’s all I can say, but you now know more than anybody else… including my publisher.
‘What I’m particularly loving about the story is that it does something I’ve never done before – it is a truly evil book.’ Evil? I ask. How so? But Horowitz quickly changes the subject – to another of his much-loved creations, Foyle’s War.
‘It’s coming back next year,’ he says. ‘I’ve just written the first episode, called High Castle. It’s set in 1946, during the Nuremberg trials. Every time I sit down to write an episode of Foyle’s War, I say I’m not going to do any more, and last year I said, “That’s it, I’m stopping.” But the response to the last series was just too good and we managed to reboot the story, too.
‘We started with a wartime detective series, but now we have a Cold War spy drama with Foyle working for MI6 and no more war. It was like moving Downton Abbey to a council estate, and it totally re-energised us.’ But then Horowitz always seems to re-energise himself and find a way through, whether the obstacle is a miserable schooling, the threat of blindness… or even the Reichenbach Falls.
Perhaps it’s all those chocolate digestives.
Russian Roulette, by Anthony Horowitz, is published by Walker Books, priced £14.99.
‘I’m not sure I could kill a man, but I could certainly pay someone else to do it for me,’ he says through sips of tea. ‘One thinks of certain people in one’s life who are deserving of such things. My old Latin teacher would be the first on the list. I suppose Tony Blair might be on it, too. And Jimmy Savile, except he’s already dead!’
Just for the record, he is not always like this. In fact, Horowitz is effortless, charming company. But as a bestselling writer, with credits including Midsomer Murders, Foyle’s War, a Sherlock Homes sequel and the Alex Rider series, he doubtless has death on the mind more than most.
In fact, he has just completed his fast-paced and much anticipated Alex Rider prequel, Russian Roulette, and is now working 11-hour days in his home office, hidden away behind a secret door, to complete his second Sherlock Holmes novel and his latest series of Foyle’s War.
On top of his punishing work schedule, Horowitz has also had to contend with his own mortality. ‘It’s been a very choppy year, healthwise. My South African book tour got cancelled because of a disc in my neck. And now there’s a cyst on the back of my right eye and a smaller one in my left eye, which is damaging my central vision. Fortunately, they haven’t grown any bigger, but there is always the spectre of this getting worse and worse. I could even go blind in one eye.
‘It has been frightening. The first specialist I saw told me to stop writing. But I very quickly realised that writing is my life and to stop would be ridiculous,’ he adds. ‘So I went and got second and third and fourth opinions, and they said actually it has nothing to do with reading and writing. Nothing can be done about it, though. Fortunately, I have two eyes.
‘People say that once you pass the age of 50, all you’re doing is dodging ailments. I don’t think I’m particularly old yet at 57, but these things happen and it just makes me work harder. I do have a funny habit, though. I always leave notes for my assistant on how my books finish, so if I drop dead in the middle of one someone else can finish it. The solution to my new Sherlock Holmes book is so pleasing that if I died, my last thought wouldn’t be about my wife and my children but: ‘Who’s going to finish this book?’
Despite his success as a writer of adult novels and television drama, Horowitz is perhaps best known for his Alex Rider books, which have sold 16 million English language copies and appeal to a younger, teenage audience. But while Russian Roulette follows 14-year-old Rider’s exploits as he attempts to evade the sinister Russian assassin on his tail, Horowitz has strong views about how children are losing their freedom and sense of adventure, particularly in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile revelations.
‘The truth is that there hasn’t been a huge rise in paedophile or child murder offences, but the media makes such a big noise when anything does happen that there’s now the sense that no child is ever safe.
‘For many children now, there’s no possibility of disappearing into the woods, hiding and building tree houses. Increasingly, children are stuck indoors, with computer games.
‘We no longer want children to walk home by themselves at night, but I think a lot of the concern is misplaced. Children just need to be more educated about the possible dangers.
‘Our children are an unfortunate generation in many ways. There are also all the health and safety issues. If a child falls over and bangs his or her knee, the immediate instinct is to contact the nearest lawyer and try and sue. At least they can still have adventures in books.
‘When my children were younger, we had a house in Suffolk, and they would run around having adventures and escapes and japes, while my wife, Jill, and I were reading the papers in bed. And we often used to think: “If anything bad were to happen, we would be on the front page of every paper, as negligent parents.” But I don’t regret it. I think that it was great that my children had that wonderful opportunity to have adventures and use their imaginations. If society can’t sustain that any more, what has it become?’
Times have certainly changed since Horowitz was a young boy. It is common knowledge that he disliked his first boarding school, calling it a ‘brutal experience’, but he also makes some rather more uncomfortable revelations. ‘Half the people who taught me were quite sinister in some ways at my first school, in North London, and a few of them might even have been predators. It’s funny, but that’s my experience of school back then. It was sort of tolerated. Even their nicknames hinted at it, and the school didn’t seem to pick up on it.
‘I had a teacher who was always leaning over and pressing into you while you were working. Everybody knew this about this teacher and everybody dreaded it, and of course nowadays you’d be locked up for it. But back then you accepted it. But then we also accepted corporal punishment and all sorts of other abuses when I was a boy.
‘Anything that makes a child safer should be applauded, but similarly, anything that makes children permanently feel afraid is worrying.
‘We’re moving into a world in which an adult cannot be left on their own with a child. It’s unfortunate that this huge mistrust now exists between adults and children. Part of it was down to Labour introducing Criminal Record Bureau checks, which automatically assume that anybody who would be alone with children must have devious motives – it did terrible damage to volunteering, which has decreased catastrophically since then.
‘As a writer myself, I am terribly careful. Children often knock on my door, but I would never let a child across the threshold. It’s just too risky in this day and age.’
But Horowitz is passionate about offering children an escape through the written word. And with Russian Roulette he has succeeded. His adult readers, however, may be more interested in news of his second Sherlock Holmes novel, a followup to his successful first 2011 outing with the Baker Street sleuth, The House Of Silk. It is scheduled for publication next year.
‘It’s set immediately after the Reichenbach Falls, so it begins with Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty both dead,’ he reveals. ‘A private detective arrives from Pinkerton in America to investigate Moriarty’s last crime, and discovers on Moriarty’s body a letter, concealed in one of his pockets. Using this, he begins to crack the last crime, helped by a police inspector who had previously assisted Holmes.
‘That’s all I can say, but you now know more than anybody else… including my publisher.
‘What I’m particularly loving about the story is that it does something I’ve never done before – it is a truly evil book.’ Evil? I ask. How so? But Horowitz quickly changes the subject – to another of his much-loved creations, Foyle’s War.
‘It’s coming back next year,’ he says. ‘I’ve just written the first episode, called High Castle. It’s set in 1946, during the Nuremberg trials. Every time I sit down to write an episode of Foyle’s War, I say I’m not going to do any more, and last year I said, “That’s it, I’m stopping.” But the response to the last series was just too good and we managed to reboot the story, too.
‘We started with a wartime detective series, but now we have a Cold War spy drama with Foyle working for MI6 and no more war. It was like moving Downton Abbey to a council estate, and it totally re-energised us.’ But then Horowitz always seems to re-energise himself and find a way through, whether the obstacle is a miserable schooling, the threat of blindness… or even the Reichenbach Falls.
Perhaps it’s all those chocolate digestives.
Russian Roulette, by Anthony Horowitz, is published by Walker Books, priced £14.99.