‘I was hopelessly stuck... I didn’t think that I could commit any more murders’

Despite appearances to the contrary, it seems there is at least one chink in Anthony Horowitz’s armour; quite possibly two.

Since his first book for children was published in 1979, Horowitz has barely paused to draw breath. Three decades on, his bookshelves groan under the weight of 50 of his own books, his TV series from Midsomer Murders to Foyle’s War have enjoyed consistently good ratings and whatever spare time he may have had has been filled with a couple of film adaptations and the odd stage play.

Such is his reputation, that when the Arthur Conan Doyle estate was looking for an author to write a new Sherlock Holmes story it was Horowitz they took out to lunch. Ditto, Steven Spielberg when he was scouting for someone to pen the second Tintin movie.

So it’s refreshing to know that not everything Horowitz touches turns to gold. He’s currently out in Crete and despite attending language classes he admits he’s struggling to pick up the lingo. “For every word I remember, I forget three,” he recently confessed on Twitter. “My teacher is getting very depressed.”

More heartening still is the revelation that Horowitz, whose output can be reasonably described as phenomenal, isn’t immune to the occasional bout of writer’s block.

“I’ve been out here writing Foyle’s War and I did become hopelessly stuck,” he says. “It’s my 23rd episode and I did think perhaps I simply cannot commit any more murders. However, the other afternoon I had a breakthrough, I’ve decided not to include a murder at all.”

Foyle’s War without a murder sounds like fish without chips, but viewers will get to decide for themselves when the new series goes out next year. It’s now more than 12 years since Horowitz first had the idea for the wartime detective drama, which raised the bar of Sunday evening television.

Less twee than Midsomer Murders, which Horowitz adapted from Caroline Graham’s books, it’s also a much more accurate British life, albeit 60 years ago.

“Midsomer Murders is a fantasy of an England that never was and it just got to the point where I wanted to write something which went beyond the fact the butler did it,” says the 57-year-old, who is married to Jill Green, who produces the series. “There has always an appetite for intelligent drama, but it’s also true that the kind of series which take viewers on a more complex journey than just from A to B are in short supply.”

Such was the outcry from fans when it was announced ITV was planning to axe the series a few years ago, the broadcaster was forced to bid a hasty retreat. However, even Horowitz admits he had reservations about reviving Chief Supt Foyle for an eighth outing.

“When your wife is also the producer you tend to do what you are told, but I did take a little convincing,” he says. “With any television you have to be sure that you can take the characters and the story forward. When I decided to set it in 1946 it all fell into place.

“The war may have ended, but the Cold War was just beginning, the Nuremberg Trials were happening and it struck me that it was a period rich with stories.”

Horowitz, who studied English Literature in York University in the late 1970s has always prided himself on the accuracy of his research and the stories of men like Alan Nunn May, the British scientist who sold atomic research secrets to the Russians, have made the series much more than a simple whodunit.

“Right from when I wrote the first episode back in 2000, I was always really intrigued about writing a detective show at a time when murder didn’t matter so much,” says Horowitz, who has since sold the show to 27 countries, Germany excluded. “So many people were dying, that the odd body in Hastings wasn’t the cause of much excitement. I wanted to use that backdrop and the arc of a detective story as the basis for looking at the lives of real people.

“I am guilty of having fake memories, so I do rely on my wonderful researcher to tell me if I’ve got the facts right. There was one episode where we mentioned snook, the fish the Government tried to convince the British public was delicious during the Second World War.

“They said it tasted like beef, well it didn’t, it was horrible, but it’s those kind of details that I love and which help to make the show believable. The fact is that people love war stories and they love detective stories, so Foyle’s War hits two marks.”

While the show’s audience may be largely middle-aged, Horowitz hasn’t confined himself to one target audience and youngsters know him best as the Alex Rider author. While a film adaptation of the first book Stormbreaker attracted both modest reviews and box office takings, the books, loosely tagged as the adventures of a young James Bond, have sold 12 million copies worldwide.

“With anything I do, whether that be a TV series or a book, I like to write from a position of authority. When it came to Alex Rider that meant learning a lot about helicopters and guns, environmental terrorism. I had my own boy’s adventure.”

Last year, after book nine, Horowitz decided to put his teenage spy into retirement. He is currently writing a spin-off about one of book’s baddies, but says Rider won’t be making a comeback.

“It was the right time to end it. When you write as much about one character as I did with Alex Rider there is always a danger of becoming formulaic. I thought it would be better to leave it as nine really strong books rather than diluting the series with a couple of half-hearted efforts.

“Ian Fleming felt the same way. He twice tried to kill him off, once in From Russia With Love and again in You Only Live Twice and I can completely understand his frustration.”

It’s partly the reason why, his second Sherlock Holmes novel won’t feature the deerstalker detective at all. Horowitz was chosen by the Conan Doyle estate to write the first official Holmes novel since the author’s death in 1930. House of Silk, which came out last year, won positive reviews from critics and fans of the original books alike, so why change a winning formula?

“When I was first asked to write the new Sherlock Holmes book I instantly said yes,” he says. “I knew I could do a good job and I really don’t mean that to sound conceited. Within about 30 minutes I had the plot worked out and it was a complete pleasure to write. It’s always nice when I hear the book made people go back to Conan Doyle’s originals, but the next book will be very different.

“The recent Robert Downey films are great, but they’re what I call Indiana Holmes and what I really want to do is explore the world in which he lives. So it’s set in 1890 and the main character is Watson. By that time, he and Holmes were already working together, but I want to look at Watson’s partnership with another younger detective. I’ve probably told you more than I’ve told my publisher, but I’m really excited about it.”

In a couple of days time, Horowitz will leave the Crete sunshine behind and return to the UK. On Friday he will be back at York University where he will be interviewed as part of the city’s Festival of Ideas.

“My main memory of university in York is of not working enough, I spent most of my time writing plays and books, but it was wonderful. I went to public school and after my A-levels I put myself through a pretty rough gap year in an attempt to strip off some the privilege I’d grown up with. I worked as cowboy in Australia and then travelled back to England overland. So when I arrived in York, I was slightly less cossetted than I might have been otherwise

“University gave me three years to find myself and three years to grow up . It was in York that I fell in love with Charles Dickens and through an incredible art history tutor got to know about Rubens. My degree might not have been up to much, but it all fed into one big tapestry of experience.”

After his brief return to York, there’s a hundred other commitments to meet, not least the looming deadline for the Foyle’s War script.

“I should probably learn to say no a bit more. I’m surrounded by people who try to say no on my behalf, but somehow the answer is always yes.”

Horowitz’s happy return

Anthony Horowitz was born in Stanmore, Middlesex in 1955 to a wealthy family.

His father was a millionaire businessman, but following his death in 1977 the family struggled to find any of the money which had been secreted away in various Swiss bank accounts.

Having been sent to boarding school at the age of eight, Horowitz ended his school days at Rugby and following a gap year took a place to study English literature at York University.

He will be back at the university on June 16 to talk about his life and work, before officially opening the university’s new library.

Free tickets for the talk are available at yorkfestivalofideas.com/tickets