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Author and television scriptwriter Anthony Horowitz was born in Stanmore, England on April 5, 1956. At the age of eight, he was sent to a boarding school in London. He graduated from the University of York and published his first book, Enter Frederick K. Bower (1979), when he was 23. He writes mostly children's books, including the Alex Rider series, The Power of Five series, and the Diamond Brothers series. The Alex Rider series is about a 14-year-old boy becoming a spy and was made into a movie entitled Stormbreaker. He has won numerous awards including the 1989 Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award for Groosham Grange and the 2003 Red House Children's Book Award for Skeleton Key. He also writes novels for adults including The Killing Joke and The Magpie Murders. He has created Foyle's War and Midsomer Murders for television as well as written episodes for Poirot and Murder Most Horrid. He made The New York Times Best Seller list with his titles The House of Silk Russian Roulette: The Story of an Assassin and Moriarity.Most recently he was commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write the James Bond novel Trigger Mortis. Anthony was awarded an OBE for his services to literature in January 2014. (Bowker Author Biography) — biography from Stormbreaker… (more)
Stormbreaker 6,662 copies, 195 reviews
Point Blank 4,333 copies, 81 reviews
Skeleton Key 4,173 copies, 66 reviews
Eagle Strike 3,726 copies, 50 reviews
Ark Angel 3,711 copies, 68 reviews
Scorpia 3,696 copies, 61 reviews
Magpie Murders 3,523 copies, 224 reviews
Snakehead 2,884 copies, 59 reviews
The House of Silk 2,709 copies, 146 reviews
Raven's Gate 2,152 copies, 64 reviews
Crocodile Tears 2,133 copies, 53 reviews
The Word is Murder 1,882 copies, 114 reviews
Moriarty 1,615 copies, 67 reviews
Evil Star 1,524 copies, 23 reviews
Scorpia Rising 1,482 copies, 23 reviews
Nightrise 1,239 copies, 23 reviews
Moonflower Murders 1,236 copies, 66 reviews
The Sentence is Death 1,051 copies, 59 reviews
Necropolis 976 copies, 27 reviews
Russian Roulette 736 copies, 10 reviews
The Falcon's Malteser 712 copies, 10 reviews
A Line to Kill 666 copies, 31 reviews
Public Enemy Number Two 542 copies, 4 reviews
South By Southeast 474 copies, 5 reviews
Groosham Grange 474 copies, 13 reviews
Trigger Mortis 472 copies, 18 reviews
Stormbreaker: The Graphic Novel 453 copies, 14 reviews
The Twist of a Knife 440 copies, 24 reviews
Oblivion 426 copies, 37 reviews
Forever and a Day 360 copies, 21 reviews
The Devil and His Boy 327 copies, 6 reviews
The Switch 323 copies, 6 reviews
Never Say Die 303 copies, 5 reviews
Return to Groosham Grange 294 copies, 4 reviews
Point Blank: The Graphic Novel 288 copies, 10 reviews
Granny 283 copies, 3 reviews
Horowitz Horror 241 copies, 3 reviews
Alex Rider: The Gadgets 233 copies, 2 reviews
Skeleton Key: The Graphic Novel 164 copies, 4 reviews
Nightshade 157 copies, 4 reviews
The Blurred Man 155 copies, 4 reviews
The Greek Who Stole Christmas 153 copies, 4 reviews
With a Mind to Kill 149 copies, 5 reviews
The Killing Joke 140 copies, 6 reviews
The French Confection 137 copies, 2 reviews
More Horowitz Horror 128 copies, 2 reviews
The Three Monarchs 106 copies, 2 reviews
Eagle Strike: Graphic Novel 89 copies, 3 reviews
Bloody Horowitz 89 copies
Stormbreaker [2006 film] (Author) 86 copies
Death Walks Tonight: Horrifying Stories (Editor) 72 copies, 1 review
Legends: Beasts and Monsters 72 copies, 1 review
Killer Camera 67 copies, 2 reviews
Legends: Battles and Quests 66 copies, 1 review
Twist Cottage 49 copies, 2 reviews
Two of Diamonds 46 copies
Foyle's War: Set 1 (Creator) 45 copies
The Phone Goes Dead 44 copies, 2 reviews
Scared 43 copies, 2 reviews
The Night Bus 41 copies, 1 review
Raven's Gate: The Graphic Novel 40 copies, 2 reviews
Foyle's War: Set 6 (Creator) 38 copies, 2 reviews
Foyle's War: Set 3 (Creator) 36 copies, 2 reviews
Foyle's War: Set 7 (Creator) 36 copies, 2 reviews
Burnt 33 copies, 1 review
Day of the Dragon 31 copies, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 4 (Creator) 30 copies, 2 reviews
Foyle's War: Set 8 (Creator) 30 copies, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 5 (Creator; Creator) 27 copies, 2 reviews
William S 22 copies
Foyle's War: Set 2 (Creator) 21 copies, 2 reviews
Foyle's War: Set 1, Episode 2: White Feather (Creator) 20 copies, 2 reviews
Vermeer to Eternity 19 copies, 3 reviews
The Four of Diamonds 16 copies, 1 review
Angst 15 copies
The Hitchhiker 14 copies
Foyle's War: Set 2, Episode 1: Fifty Ships (Creator) 13 copies, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 1, Episode 4: Eagle Day (Creator) 12 copies, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 2, Episode 2: Among the Few (Creator) 12 copies, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 2, Episode 3: War Games (Creator) 10 copies, 1 review
Meer angst 5 copies
Foyle's War: Set 3, Episode 2: Enemy Fire (Creator) 5 copies, 1 review
The White Carnation 4 copies, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 4, Episode 2: Bad Blood (Creator) 4 copies, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 4, Episode 1: Invasion (Creator) 4 copies, 1 review
The Man with Eleven Fingers 3 copies, 1 review
Christmas at Gunpoint 3 copies, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 5, Episode 2: Broken Souls (Creator) 3 copies, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 5, Episode 3: All Clear (Creator) 3 copies, 1 review
Resistance to Interrogation 2 copies, 1 review
Kuća svile 2 copies
The Best of Foyle's War (Creator) 2 copies
Tea with Smithers 2 copies, 1 review
Adventurer 2 copies, 1 review
The Switch {video} (Author) 2 copies
Foyle's War (Series 5-6) (Creator) 2 copies
Foyle's War: Sets 1-7 (Creator) 2 copies
Secret Weapon 1 copy, 1 review
Episode 4 1 copy
Episode 5 1 copy
Muerto de Miedo 1 copy, 1 review
Foyle's War: Set 9 (Creator) 1 copy
Alex in Afghanistan 1 copy, 1 review
Spy Trap 1 copy, 1 review

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Short biography
Anthony Horowitz's life might have been copied from the pages of Charles Dickens or the Brothers Grimm. Born in 1956 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a family of wealth and status, Anthony was raised by nannies, surrounded by servants and chauffeurs. His father, a wealthy businessman, was, says Mr. Horowitz, "a fixer for Harold Wilson." What that means exactly is unclear -- "My father was a very secretive man," he says-- so an aura of suspicion and mystery surrounds both the word and the man. As unlikely as it might seem, Anthony's father, threatened with bankruptcy, withdrew all of his money from Swiss bank accounts in Zurich and deposited it in another account under a false name and then promptly died. His mother searched unsuccessfully for years in attempt to find the money, but it was never found. That too shaped Anthony's view of things. Today he says, "I think the only thing to do with money is spend it." His mother, whom he adored, eccentrically gave him a human skull for his 13th birthday. His grandmother, another Dickensian character, was mean-spirited and malevolent, a destructive force in his life. She was, he says, "a truly evil person", his first and worst arch villain. "My sister and I danced on her grave when she died," he now recalls.
A miserably unhappy and overweight child, Anthony had nowhere to turn for solace. "Family meals," he recalls, "had calories running into the thousands&. I was an astoundingly large, round child&." At the age of eight he was sent off to boarding school, a standard practice of the times and class in which he was raised. While being away from home came as an enormous relief, the school itself, Orley Farm, was a grand guignol horror with a headmaster who flogged the boys till they bled. "Once the headmaster told me to stand up in assembly and in front of the whole school said, 'This boy is so stupid he will not be coming to Christmas games tomorrow.' I have never totally recovered." To relieve his misery and that of the other boys, he not unsurprisingly made up tales of astounding revenge and retribution.

Anthony Horowitz is perhaps the busiest writer in England. He has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. He writes in a comfortable shed in his garden for up to ten hours per day. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he has also written episodes of several popular TV crime series, including Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. He has written a television series Foyle's War, which recently aired in the United States, and he has written the libretto of a Broadway musical adapted from Dr. Seuss's book, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. His film script The Gathering has just finished production. And&oh yes&there are more Alex Rider novels in the works. Anthony has also written the Diamond Brothers series.
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