Murder Mystery Fans Need To Watch This Twisty Series Before Its Sequel Comes Out

The Big Picture

• Magpie Murders
  will begin re-airing on PBS starting this week in anticipation of the sequel,
  Moonflower Murders
  .
  
• The series features twists, suspects, red herrings, and a shocking ending similar to Agatha Christie’s stories.
• Magpie Murders
  explores betrayal, symbols, and the inter-relationship of reality and the mind.

New viewers and old fans now have a rare chance to catch up with the darkly comedic BBC hit Magpie Murders beginning August 11 when PBS re-airs the original series before the debut of its sequel, Moonflower Murders. Adapted by Anthony Horowitz from his own twisty best-selling novel, the series features multiple twists, more than a dozen delightfully likely suspects, red herrings, and a shocking ending that rivals the best of Agatha Christie. Its two parallel plotlines center on book editor Susan Ryeland, wonderfully played by Lesley Manville, best known for her Oscar-nominated performance in 2017’s Phantom Thread.

What Is ‘Magpie Mysteries’ About?

Shortly after the murder of her cash cow mystery author Alan Conway (Conleth Hill), Ryeland (an intelligent modern woman of a certain age who wears a leather jacket as she zips around in her bright red MG) receives the manuscript of his eagerly-awaited new whodunnit without the vital final chapter. “Is there anything more useless than a whodunnit without an ending?” she declares disgustingly. While attempting to find the missing pages, Ryeland realizes that the bitter and malevolent writer has based his novel’s characters on his own family and acquaintances, revealing their ugly secrets and his negative critiques of them, giving them all ample motive for his murder.

As she pours through Conway’s manuscript for clues, Ryeland enters into the novel’s mid-century village world, where she encounters the fictional German detective, Atticus Pünd, at first in a dream. She begins to summon up Pünd, at least in her imagination, to consult with her as she attempts to solve both Conway’s whodunnit (the decapitation of Sir Magnus Pye at Pye Hall by broad sword) and, unwittingly, closes in on Conway’s desperate and dangerous real murderer. Meanwhile, Ryeland must decide whether to take over the publishing company from her retiring boss, or chuck it all and move to Crete with her homesick Greek lover.

When it was first broadcast in 2022 as part of PBS’ Masterpiece Mysteries, Magpie Murders was a hit, receiving a 7.5/10 IMDb rating and 5/5 stars on Rotten Tomatoes. In her review of the original airing, Collider’s Emily Bernard lauds screenwriter Horowitz’s bona fides and Manville’s star turn but takes issue with some of the plot’s time-wasting digressions. There are certainly a few. Nonetheless, she concludes, “Magpie Murders is a very enjoyable murder mystery with enough revelations and twists to keep you guessing until the end.”

What Are the Magpies in ‘Magpie Murders’?

At the start of Magpie Murders, Susan and her publisher, Charles, recite the following nursery rhyme:

One for sorrow,

Two for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret,

Never to be told.

The rhyme refers to how many magpies you must see together to have your wish granted. It is also the name of the seven chapters of Alan Conway’s book, and it’s the seventh chapter that’s missing. Artists frequently use symbols, and in Magpie Murders, magpies are ever-present, chattering away tauntingly, sounding like the rattle of a snake from on high at the people below, appearing first above Susan’s townhouse doorway as she settles in for the weekend to first read the draft of Conway’s novel. The magpie is a multicolored member of the crow family, and they are omnivores, scavengers, and predators, like owls, often cannibalizing the offspring of other birds, not unlike how Alan Conway treats his family (and vice versa).

It makes sense then to state that Magpie Murders is about betrayal. At some point, almost every character in the show, except Ryeland and Pünd, betrays someone they love; Alan Conway most of all. In particular, Conway betrays himself by not becoming the serious writer he wanted to be. As Pünd says, “There are very few good motives for murder: Fear, envy, anger, and desire.” Like envy and desire, betrayal (and the desire for revenge) can be a prime motivator.

The series also focuses on the interrelationship of inner and outer worlds: reality and the mind. Director Peter Cattaneo handles the shifts between parallel worlds with ease and style, emphasizing the idea that art imitates life. Both writer Conway and character Pünd have Stage 4 cancer hanging over them, but Conway allows Pünd to handle the diagnosis with a grace and humor Conway never could.

‘Magpie Murders’ Embraces the Satire of the Murder Mystery Genre

Part of the fun of Magpie Murders is that the supporting cast of the series play dual roles as very, very thinly disguised suspects in both Conway’s murder and the murder in his novel, adding a layer of enjoyable complexity that follows the logic of Horowitz’s book. For example, Pippa Haywood shines as the pathetic and embittered sisters, Claire and Clarrisa, of both murder victims. Actor Daniel Mays is fun as the inspector in both worlds, as is Lorcan Cranitch both as Susan’s estranged father, Max Ryeland, and as imperious Sir Magnus Pye, lord of fictional Pye Hall. Most especially, Matthew Beard stands out as both Conway’s petulant boyfriend and Pünd’s not-so-bright assistant. All the thinly disguised twin performances are enjoyable and appropriate for their separate milieus. Everything dovetails; everybody connects to everybody else.

In the solo role of disagreeable crime writer Alan Conway, Conleth Hill takes the prize as delightfully despicable and worthy of a good murder. As Bernard points out in her review, both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie eventually tired of their fictional heroes and wanted to kill them off. Conway’s disgust with Pünd hits a new low in the shocking (in more ways than one) finish. The result is a truly puzzling and suspenseful mystery and a deeply dark but hilariously funny satire of the detective fiction genre.

Magpie Murders is now re-airing on PBS every Sunday in the US. The full series is also available to stream on Prime Video.

WATCH ON PRIME VIDEO