Anthony Horowitz

Anthony John Horowitz (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 US), and The Diamond Brothers series.

He graduated from the University of York with a lower second class degree in English literature and art history in 1977, where he was in Vanbrugh College.

Horowitz's mother introduced him to Frankenstein and Dracula.

Anthony Horowitz's first book, The Sinister Secret of Frederick K Bower, was a humorous adventure for children that was published in 1979 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.

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.

Despite this, the most major 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.

In 1988, Groosham Grange was published.

Its central character is a thirteen-year-old "witch", David Eliot, gifted as the seventh son of a seventh son.

This book went on to win the 1989 Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award.

Some similarities were made between this book and J K Rowling's newer Harry Potter series, but Horowitz did not choose to take action because of this.

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.

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); and 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 the upcoming Close to Death (2024).

It was later renamed Return to Groosham Grange in 2003, possibly to help young readers understand the connection between the two books.

In a 2006 interview Horowitz stated "I was quite certain, from my earliest memory, that I would be a professional writer and nothing but."

At age 13 he went to Rugby School, a public school in Rugby, Warwickshire.

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.

Horowitz's father was associated with some of the politicians in the "circle" of prime minister Harold Wilson, including Eric Miller.

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.

This left the family bankrupt, requiring sale of the large family home.

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 has also written for television, contributing scripts to ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot and adapting Midsomer Murders from the novels of Caroline Graham.

He was the creator and writer of the ITV series Foyle's War, Collision and Injustice, and the BBC series Crime Traveller and New Blood.

Horowitz was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, into a Jewish family, and in his early years lived an upper middle class lifestyle.

An overweight and unhappy child, Horowitz enjoyed reading books from his father's library.

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).

Horowitz 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.